


SOBER TO DEATH

by illinois_e



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Time Skip, a big thank you to anne carson for writing words, alcohol consumption, emotionally stunted people, hinata shouyou saves the day, horror movies used to advance plot, im not that sure but my friend says it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25979566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinois_e/pseuds/illinois_e
Summary: on the rules and regulations of falling in love with your biggest contender in the major asshole local championship.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 36
Kudos: 443





	SOBER TO DEATH

**Author's Note:**

> after one month and eight days, here i am.
> 
> first things first: this fic wouldn't exist without my amazing friend morgana [(@tangerina)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerina/pseuds/Tangerina). she is the one who introduced me to car seat headrest, the band that now monopolizes the soundtracks of all my future fics.
> 
> if you can, please listen to [sober to death](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydv6usKn2rg), the song that inspired this work. listen to it before you read this, or during, or after. listen to it a year after. i don't care, just LISTEN to it. please.
> 
> also, i picked up anne carson's _eros the bittersweet_ as i was writing the later half of this, and let's say you'll notice it if you've read it too.
> 
> this fic was a labour of love, so now i'll leave you to it.

Squished between Inunaki and Hinata, who were much more engrossed in bickering about how stupid the protagonist of a horror movie had to be to go down to the basement even with the suspicious creaking noises and all the telltale signs of the presence of ghosts—which are about the same in every horror movie Kiyoomi begrudgingly watched to this date—he wondered once again why he wasn’t capable of keeping his word and simply not coming to any more movie nights, as he vowed to do at the end of every single one of them.

It was all Hinata’s fault. Hinata had that thing where he looked at them as if he was a child for whom they could secure eternal happiness and fulfillment if only they bought the shiny new toy he was pleading for. Kiyoomi never liked children, which meant that he was quick to do whatever children asked of him if that meant keeping their mouths shut. Hinata was the youngest addition to the team, and he wore his role like second nature. Kiyoomi wondered if it would stay even when he wasn’t the youngest player any longer, or if it was only a carefully devised personality trait meant to enrapture them in Hinata’s game.

He would prefer the former, as he had become more fond of the young menace than he first thought.

So Kiyoomi would loudly proclaim to everyone he would not honor them with his charismatic self on the next movie night, and then twenty minutes before said outrageous weekly appointment Hinata would knock on his door and do that thing with his eyes, and Kiyoomi would sigh and ready himself for two hours of watching whatever they hadn’t watched yet in The Conjuring universe, with that stupid doll which never failed to make Atsumu scream every time she appeared on the screen.

Kiyoomi did not want to think about Atsumu, however. Thinking about Atsumu always left him with a headache. Thinking about Atsumu was, in several ways, worse than talking with Atsumu, because in the later Kiyoomi could easily ignore him while Atsumu ran his mouth over something meaningless and stupid, which would make him shut up in a few minutes. Atsumu thrived on attention, so the best trick was not giving it to him. It was easy until it was not—but Kiyoomi hadn’t reached that point yet.

He still hadn’t found a way of ignoring his own thoughts, unfortunately. So Atsumu inside his mind meant trouble. Atsumu inside his mind meant something which he could not escape from, meant an insufferable repetition of all the provocations and subtle insults thrown at him, alongside a rehearsal of all the answers he would give, if only he had energy to engage in open conflict in the middle of the court. 

“Omi-Omi!” Bokuto said. Or shouted. It was very difficult to know with Bokuto, who talked as if he had only learned the alphabet in uppercase. “How come these movies never scare you? Here I am about to piss myself in my pants! And Keiji is not even in the city to sleep with me!”

Kiyoomi did, in fact, get scared. He just refused to make a scandal out of it. Sometimes he imaged the stupid blonde that ran right into the frenzied corpse arms was Atsumu, and that made him hold off a laugh while the rest of them were holding their breaths. It usually worked. More than once Kiyoomi had fancied the possibility of buying a real sized Raggedy Ann doll and leave it waiting at Atsumu’s bed for when he came back from practice, but that was too cruel, even for him.

For now.

“It’s pretty predictable,” He said, instead. And it was, frankly, especially considering this was the fifth or something movie of the series. There were so many tropes you can use in a ghost movie, and The Conjuring had gone through all of them, and then some. Kiyoomi did not have a heartfelt appreciation for the horror genre. Kiyoomi did not have a heartfelt appreciation for many things besides volleyball. “In a movie about an evil doll, it is only obvious that there’s a doll who will proceed to do evil deeds.”

“Yes! But—” Bokuto threw his arms around as if by wildly gesticulating he could communicate in a language known to man and bird alike. Kiyoomi always thought animals were too much of a hassle, and if you wanted company might as well get a Tamagotchi, which has the advantage of being portable. “You know?”

“I don’t.”

He didn’t need to look to the right to know that Inunaki was rolling his eyes at them. Kiyoomi would like to let it be very clear that the current intellectual state of their team is not his fault, but that would be a lie. He could humor Bokuto, if he wanted. It’s just that he didn’t. Most of the time, Kiyoomi wouldn’t even humor himself. 

Maybe he should have joined the Adlers, after all. At most, Ushijima, Kageyama and him would find themselves in the middle of too many staring down matches, which would be a thousand times superior to this circus-like trend the Jackals had going on.

And the thing is: Bokuto was already turning his head to him in a — futile — attempt to break down this bewildering combination of hand gestures and facial expressions in a set of signals closer to human language, because more than anything Bokuto wants to be understood. And if this were anywhere else—if this was Itachiyama, Kiyoomi would already be getting up, maybe dragging Motoya with him or maybe not, because he would not spend precious minutes of his limited lifetime listening to a mockery of explanation that would only end up leaving everyone more confused than they already were; and yet. And yet there he was, a sigh leaving his lips the only sign of mild irritability, his body stuck into place, his brain prepared to be made into figurative mush for how long Bokuto needed it.

And yet, he thought, since he was already there, might as well stay until the movie ends.

“Don’t bother, Bokkun.” It takes Kiyoomi half a second to process that the voice belonged to Atsumu, if only because the dismissive tone seemed much more a carbon copy of the one Kiyoomi himself used than something that Atsumu would scold his throat into creating. Atsumu had only two buttons—shouting and cruel jokes. “It ain’t like Omi-kun is actually listenin’.”

If it was anybody else — quite literally, _anybody else_ — Kiyoomi would be silently thankful for that. He might as well have given the person his average look of gratitude, which consisted of his normal expression while feeling grateful. But the thing was that this was Miya Atsumu, and Kiyoomi would prefer if Atsumu refrained from remembering his existence outside any volleyball related scenario. 

To be honest, he would prefer that Atsumu didn’t remember him _at all_ , but he knows that’s impossible. Kiyoomi was never a man of great expectations. He had his feet firmly planted on the ground. He wanted to have them on Miya Atsumu’s disgusting face. 

“I was listening, actually. Before you interrupted him.” Agreeing with Atsumu was not something Kiyoomi planned to do in the foreseeable future. And if it meant subjecting himself to excruciating torture in the form of an overexcited Bokuto Koutarou so be it. 

“Come on, Omi-kun, no need to pretend.”

“I don't know what has taken you to presume—”

“ _Shhh!_ ” Hinata hissed, too close to Kiyoomi for comfort. “I can’t pay attention to the movie with you two bickering!”

Horror movies require at most a very low threshold of attention. Kiyoomi wanted to argue that, but if anything it would only push Hinata to take drastic measures, Hinata being oddly familiarized with the word _drastic_. Kiyoomi crossed his arms and restrained himself from kicking Atsumu’s back, turned to him like a target, like the perfect space between two receivers where he could slam a ball into.

So he turned his attention back to the movie. Maybe he really should buy an Annabelle lookalike and leave it on Atsumu's bed. Maybe it would settle their score—considering that Atsumu had won that one, even though only with Hinata’s help. Kiyoomi would never have thought he would be so disappointed in not listening to Bokuto rambling. He had never put so much into having the last word in an argument. Something changed but he can't pinpoint when. Something changed but he can't pinpoint what.

Atsumu glanced at him through the rest of the movie, when the rest of them were too worried, screaming their throats raw. Kiyoomi feigned ignorance. He acted stupid and he knew it. He should've kept his mouth shut and yet he could not accept a benevolence directed at him from yours only, Miya Atsumu, starting setter. 

Atsumu glanced at him through the rest of the movie, and even though his eyes seemed filled to the brim with curiosity, he did not grace Kiyoomi with a single word.

Somehow, that bothered him the most.

✸

Taping one’s own fingers renders the hands utterly useless to anything that it’s not volleyball. Kiyoomi wished he could too, be useless to anything besides volleyball. Instead, he found himself being abnormally good in a wide range of small things, from scrubbing the bathroom floor spotless clean, to boiling sixteen types of tea in the adequate temperature to enhance the flavor, to spotting with his eyes which of the umeboshi are sweeter than the average and must not be chosen.

Bokuto could afford to be good solely at volleyball because he also could, at any given time, which includes four in the morning and the adjacent hours, call Akaashi and ask him to please take a train from Sendai to Osaka and cook some tonjiru and Akaashi would sigh and say he’s going to pack. Or at least he would guide Bokuto through the kitchen as to cut in half the likelihood of the MSBY Black Jackals’ kitchen being set ablaze at exactly two o’clock.

Kiyoomi had to be good in whatever he managed to, and that included taping his own finger, because he didn’t have anyone to do it for him. It’s to kill or be killed. Alternatively, it’s taping his fingers or pulling the skin around the corners of his nails until he reached the bone underneath, pale as the sclera of his own eyes.

It was a bad habit, because these are the ones that stuck. It was the birthmark of a boy who learned to keep his mouth busy with things other than the words that got permanently lodged inside his throat, unwilling to get out. Kiyoomi always made sure to sanitize his hands before, and then after, the alcohol burning inside him to an extent he wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to just cut his fingers out. He still would be able to receive, anyway. The smallest of mercies still on sale.

“Hey, Omi-Omi,” Atsumu said, materializing in front of Kiyoomi in the locker room like a ghost. The movie nights were starting to affect his brain. He needed to stop. Alternatively, he needed Hinata to stop inviting him. “Need any help?”

Kiyoomi was the starting outside hitter for the MSBY Black Jackals for almost three years, and in all that time Atsumu had never asked him if he needed help with anything. In all that time Atsumu had not looked at him without a sneer poorly conceived on his face, not counting the times he drank himself to oblivion after a win. Or after the time he found out the rice farmer he fancied in high school got engaged to the Red Falcon’s outside hitter. It was Kiyoomi’s first month in the jackals. Atsumu had not changed an ounce since their last match in the 2014 Spring High finals.

“No.” Kiyoomi knew what Atsumu was doing. He was waving a white flag. He might as well have written _please_ on it. Kiyoomi wanted to rip it into little pieces and eat them all. He had been talking the language of war with Atsumu since he was fifteen. He was a man of habit. Repetition to perfection. 

Atsumu sighed. He did that a lot, announced his feelings like everyone secretly wanted to know about it. Kiyoomi wanted to rip his face in little pieces and—

“Ya know,” he said, hand doing circular gestures towards of Kiyoomi’s fingers, trapping them in a bright red circle, like a teacher signaling a word written wrong. Or the whole paragraph. “My high school captain was kind of a clean fr— I mean. Cleaning enthusiast. Like ya.”

“You mean the guy you were in love with?” Kiyoomi expected a verbal negative, _it was just a crush_ , but all he got was a shrug of Atsumu’s shoulders. 

“Kita-san, yes. He mostly used gloves, ya know, ‘cause of the bleach. But sometimes he didn’t. Do ya use gloves, Sakusa?”

 _Sakusa_. Surname. No honorifics. Kiyoomi carefully stored that moment, though he didn’t know why. He was adjusted to abnormality. He was born with the shadow of it perched on his shoulders. Few things surprised him. This one did. 

“Sometimes.” And sometimes he would leave them in their place, thinking they were just going to slow him down, even though he knew they wouldn’t. 

Atsumu nodded as if Kiyoomi had just proved the point he was trying to make, like a scientist with an equation spanning the whole board, and see, Kiyoomi just filled the last line for him, and now he can surely show everyone how the answer is something stupid, like the number pi, which is not a number but a Greek letter, and the reason for the unwavering decline of mathematical sciences. 

“I asked him about it, once, and he told me that sometimes, he needed to feel it on his skin. It took me awhile to understand it.” _No wonder_ , Kiyoomi wanted to say, but there was a light flashing inside his head telling that this was somehow important for Atsumu, and maybe he didn’t need to rip the white flag at that moment, maybe he could give him five more minutes before throwing him off the boat. “That much cleaning product will dry out yer skin, though. And that’s what makes it so easy to pick off.”

Kiyoomi was well acquainted with the need to feel it on his skin. He should give this Kita-san a call, someday. They could bond over cleaning supplies and how Miya Atsumu looked more and more stupid the more and more he tried not to. Or they could not, for Atsumu talked about Kita as if he was a god incarnate and Kiyoomi is, well, Kiyoomi, and it took Motoya two years of incessant conversation and four interventions from his parents to make him open up an inch, which was the exact space Motoya needed to infiltrate all aspects of his life.

He wouldn’t give Miya Atsumu an inch if his life depended on it.

Kiyoomi finished his left hand, moved to the right one—a tricky thing, especially with five fingers already taped. Thumb first, because it’s the presence of opposable thumbs that allowed for the rise of humanity to the top of the food chain, amongst other things, like the perpetual drive for armed conflict. Opposable thumbs made possible for a man, millions of years ago, to hold two rocks in his hands and scratch them against each other in a seemingly aimless movement until the first spark of fire. Opposable thumbs, this day, made it possible for him to think of another thing, during a whole minute, that was not Miya Atsumu standing in front of him, talking about the man he once loved and cleaning products and the building of good habits regarding the care of his own body. Miya Atsumu. The joke that writes itself.

His index was surprisingly unmarred, so he moved to the middle one—the finger he wanted to stick on Atsumu’s face, more often than not. “Is there a meaning on this or you’re just using me to say something no one else wants to hear?”

“What I mean, Omi-kun, is that I have hand lotion, and ya can knock at my door if ya want it.”

What I mean, Omi-kun, is that you’re a jerk, and I'm a jerk, and from jerk to jerk you’re tryin’ to get my spot as the biggest fool of this team, which is a play I do not appreciate.

“Thanks. I have mine.”

“Well,” Atsumu said; or drawled, his stupid tongue that was always peeking out at the wrong moments delighting itself on the curve of the word. Kiyoomi had just asked him what the fuck number pi supposedly represents. “Yer not using it, are ya?”

Kiyoomi didn’t answer, gave Atsumu the set point because he didn’t want to talk anymore or maybe he didn’t know what to talk, or maybe he wanted to be reminded that Atsumu was not thoughtful or caring or a person liable to being described by positive adjectives other than determined. Kiyoomi didn’t answer and Atsumu left but Kiyoomi did not knock at Atsumu’s door when he got into the dorms, and he pulled the tape off his fingers quickly, like a bandaid, the sting reverberating through his body in the same rhythm as Atsumu’s words echoing in his head.

If there was a sport of aggressively applying lotion to your hands, Kiyoomi would be winning. If there was a sport of not letting Miya Atsumu affect him, he would be failing quite miserably.

✸

In a statement of stubbornness, Kiyoomi did not go to the next movie night.

He spent his day in preparation for dealing with a Hinata Shouyou who was not above pouting until he got whatever he wanted, but Hinata didn't do more than smile and say _That's okay, Omi-kun. See you tomorrow!_ His smile is just short of blinding. Kiyoomi hated when people called him by nicknames, but Hinata might be an exception. _Might_. In the way that Bokuto wasn’t an exception but Kiyoomi didn’t want him to mope around so he didn’t say anything, the same way that Atsumu wasn’t an exception and if someday he were accused of murder Kiyoomi wouldn’t be able to testify against him because they were declared enemies.

He was also trying to get used to the notion that some people just liked him without the need of a ten page long essay explaining their reasons.

In any case, Kiyoomi was ready for a night of watching EJP Raijin’s past volleyball matches so he could properly crush Motoya when they fight off in the next weekend. He had even ordered takeout, which was a process that usually took him around thirty minutes to an hour as he tried to find information about the sanitary state of the chosen restaurant. This one seemed nice enough. Still, Kiyoomi found the feeling to be dreadfully close to jumping off a cliff.

What he did not expect, however, was that he would open his door after a knock to find Miya Atsumu waiting for him with a bag in his hands and a smile on his face.

Kiyoomi wondered how low in the overall good manners world ranking he would fall if he shut the door on Atsumu’s face. He wondered if he cared about the good manners world ranking at all, and if it was more important than having a peaceful night by himself.

Couldn’t Atsumu see the house was already full with all the demons Kiyoomi carried along inside his body? Couldn’t he see that his presence would only be the catalyst of an unwanted explosion?

But then, this was Miya Atsumu we’re talking about. He does not like to get out, unless it is with a bang.

“Omi-kun!” he exclaimed, with the audacity to feign happiness, while Kiyoomi tried to find an excuse to kick him out. _I was just diagnosed with a highly contagious disease. I'm busy scrubbing the ceiling._ _I'm allergic to you_. “What yer doing? I brought beer! Wanna share?”

“I don't drink, actually.” It was a lie, and what was worse was that Atsumu knew it was a lie, and he didn’t let himself be unfazed by that fact that Kiyoomi was clearly lying to get away from him. 

If only, he smiled even wider. 

What a strange thing, this Miya Atsumu. What a curious match of overlapping pieces. “Neither do I, it seems. But it’s gonna get warm if ya don’t let me in.”

Later, Kiyoomi would tell himself the only reason he opened the door wide enough for Atsumu to slip in was because it would be a real waste to let such excellent beer grow warm. Lies stacked up on top of one another like jenga pieces end up giving the illusion of truth; one needs only to know the angle by which to look. Kiyoomi could find it with his eyes closed.

And these were the things he noticed: how Atsumu slipped off his shoes in the hallway without using his hands; how he closed the door beside him with a clothed elbow; how he took the bag into the bathroom and ran the five cans of beer under a stream of water; how he washed his own hands after; how he opened the minibar’s door with jacket covered fingers, mindful not to leave a single imprint of his digitals, a fleeting reminder of his presence.

There were words lodged inside Kiyoomi’s throat. They sounded like _leave me something so I won’t forget_. They sounded like the rambling of a madman. Or something worse.

Instead, he said, “Why aren’t you with the others?” which meant: why aren’t you with people that you can actually have fun with? Why are you here? Correction: why are you here, with me?

“I think I gotta take a break from horror movies, ya know.” He broke the can’s seal with an audible click. It was the sound that would remain inside Kiyoomi’s head long after Atsumu left. Click. It wasn’t the sound one would expect from a person about to break. But then, they were the two most dysfunctional human beings Kiyoomi knew. “After the last one I couldn't sleep for three days straight. Every time my curtains shifted I thought _this is it, it’s out to get me, goodbye world, at least I’ve had a nice life_. That’s not healthy.”

Kiyoomi could argue that being Miya Atsumu in itself was not healthy, but said Miya Atsumu was extending him another can of beer, touching it minimally with the tips of his fingers. Kiyoomi couldn't remember a time when this happened before, so he takes it without wiping the metal with sanitizer before. One more for his list of firsts.

“I thought you liked it.”

“What I like is to watch Bokkun getting scared to an inch of his life, and only that.” Atsumu looked around the room, lost for a split second, before sitting down on the floor, back against the bed. Every single thing Kiyoomi had learned about him in these almost ten years of disgruntled acknowledgement of his existence was a big red alert telling him Atsumu was programmed to do all he can to piss a person off. He should’ve been sitting on the bed. He should’ve been sprawled on the mattress, dirty shoes and all. Instead, he sat on the floor, compact and unbothering and— clean. “I mean, I like the— what’s their name? Slasher ones. And zombies are cool too, but _ghosts?_ I have a bad feeling.”

Huh. Kiyoomi took a gulp of his beer, icy cold on his throat, the numbness he searched for all day long. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what Atsumu wanted him to do. He didn’t know why Atsumu had barged into his room with beer and careful attempts at niceties. Atsumu wasn’t nice. That was common knowledge. 

He likely planned that for an entire week, the jackass. But Kiyoomi didn’t, and the only way he knew to socialize with the setter was by antagonizing his every word.

“You’re scared of ghosts, which are, by all means, _not real_ , but the idea of serial killers and murderers doesn’t bother you, even though one could break into this building right now?”

Needless to say, Kiyoomi wasn’t fond of the _Saw_ franchise.

“Yeah, ‘cause I can _fight_ a murderer. Try stabbing a ghost, Omi-kun. It’ll be fun.” Kiyoomi’s concept of fun involved less stabbing, and less Atsumu. But he didn’t say that. No need to say every mean thing that came upon his mind. And he didn’t need to _say_ it for Atsumu to know he thought it. “If ya don’t die first, of course. That would be only half as fun.”

Kiyoomi had been told his grimace was nothing short of ugly. By then, Atsumu was already well acquainted with it.

“It’s Friday night. Shouldn't you be with your friends, partying down or something alike?” He sat on the bed, legs close enough to Atsumu he could kick him out of the room if it came to that.

Atsumu didn’t have to stretch much to reach the minibar, grabbing his second beer. Kiyoomi let it close to bed so he could always have cold water at hand, but lately he’d been thinking more and more about the benefits of stocking it with alcoholic beverages. “I like pissin’ yer ass off. _And_ I can ask ya the same question, ya know. It’s Friday night to ya too.”

It was funny how Atsumu wouldn’t admit he had no friends. Not real ones.

From his perched spot, Kiyoomi could see the top of Atsumu’s head, the bleached strands parched and frizzled after god knows how many dyeings in the bathroom sink. It looked, frankly speaking, terrifying. Kiyoomi wanted to run his fingers through it.

“I’m not the one pitifully looking for friends on a Friday night and I’m not the one who ended up in the room of a guy I barely speak to besides sharp jabs and inconvenient comments in the locker room, so no, you can’t ask me the same question.”

Atsumu raised his hooded eyes at him, and had not in himself the decency to look mildly bothered. “Hey, I don’t like the implication that we’re not friends.”

“It’s not an implication.”

Every person has a god-designed personal punishment. Kiyoomi’s was a conceited setter with more than a simple attitude problem. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact sin that led to that, but it must’ve been something terrible.

“Come one, Omi-kun. I’m here, in yer room, on this beautiful Friday night, and we’re sipping beers and watching— EJP Raijin, seriously? I don’t need to watch Sunarin’s matches; ‘Samu always tells me all about it. Didya know they use lingerie in bed?”

“Atsumu—”

“‘Cause ‘Samu fucking told me about it. ‘Cause he hates me. And now I’m telling ya about it, ‘cause I will not carry the heavy burden that is the knowledge of my brother’s sexual life alone.”

Kiyoomi blinked very slowly, as if that could somehow erase the image of Miya Osamu, a man who looked exactly like Miya Atsumu, using lingerie. “Maybe— I don’t know.” there were few things that could steer this conversation into a better place, and Kiyoomi didn’t know any of them. “Maybe it’s Suna who wears the lingerie.”

He didn’t expect for Atsumu to pull up his best disgusted face, downing the rest of his beer in one shot. Kiyoomi would too be in desperate need of alcohol if they were talking about Motoya’s sex life. “Omi-kun, that’s worse! At least I know ‘Samu would look hot, ‘cause he looks like me and ya can bet I would look damn hot in lingerie. Sunarin? That guy is _ugly_.” They both turned to the screen, where said Sunarin was bending his torso in an impossible angle to spike. He didn’t look ugly. Kiyoomi thought he looked quite hot, to be honest. “On the inside. Where it matters.”

Kiyoomi nodded. “I believe in you.” He did not. He thought Suna must be a nice person, because he knew Miya Osamu and Miya Osamu was a nice person, not at all like his twin brother, Miya Atsumu, who stole all his parent’s bad genes. The _inconvenient motherfucker_ gene. The _preposterous jerk_ gene. The _infuriatingly good-looking_ gene. A white lie now and then doesn’t hurt anyone.

But Atsumu scoffed— saw right through him. This is what you get, Kiyoomi thought, for having a brother your age. Atsumu lied as easily as he could toss a volleyball. Kiyoomi, with siblings so much older he always felt like an only child, and not one to toss the blame for his childish antics, could not hope to fool him.

He grabbed another can and plopped down on his bed, while on the floor Atsumu turned his attention to the match. EJP was winning, because they were a damn good team and Motoya could dig almost any spike. Kiyoomi was glad his cousin’s sexual life remained unmentioned. Having Atsumu in his room like they were friends — they weren’t, right? — was bad enough for a night.

He wondered when Atsumu would leave. Would he need to tell him out? Was he supposed to simply wait? It could take the whole night. Atsumu might turn around and say _hey I’m tired think I’ll crash here if that’s a-okay with ya_ and that was not a-okay with Kiyoomi. At all. But he didn’t know how to say that. He didn’t know how to say that in a way that would make Atsumu care, because he was nosy, and troublesome, and he snored, and maybe Kiyoomi wouldn’t mind all that much. But still. He couldn't just go around telling Miya Atsumu _yeah that’s okay with me_.

They didn’t work like that. Kiyoomi liked the way they worked. It was safe. It didn’t overstep any boundaries that couldn’t be overlooked. Because he met Miya Atsumu once in a sunny day in his first Interhigh Tournament, and he thought _what an asshole,_ and Atsumu looked at him and thought _what an asshole_ , and they’ve been following the script ever since.

It is a nice script. Kiyoomi would hate to have it ripped to shreds. He didn’t know why Atsumu was trying to.

A knock on his door shook him out of his reverie. At this point Kiyoomi would not be surprised if it were Hinata, Bokuto and Inunaki, deciding to proceed with the movie night in his room instead of Bokuto’s.

But it was only the delivery guy with his order of cannelloni and apple juice. Kiyoomi would not let himself be blamed by ordering an individual portion, since he had no idea Atsumu would materialize in front of his door and stay the night. He did not want him there. He would not share the cannelloni.

“Smells good,” Atsumu said, because he didn’t have any notion of boundaries, or anything necessary for living in a society. Smells good, Atsumu said, because he was a fire hazard, and Kiyoomi was stuck playing fire brigade. “Didn’t know ya fancied Italian. Elegant.”

He rolled his eyes, if only for dramatic effect, before sitting on the floor besides Atsumu. “Grab the sanitizer first.” There were two sets of cutlery alongside the dish. Kiyoomi was sure the ad said _enough for one person only_. If he believed in fate, he would say the universe was conspiring against him. But he didn’t, so he just sighed in defeat.

“Omi-kun! Sharing yer food with silly ol’ me! And yet ya have the nerve to say we aren’t friends.”

“We're not. I’m just well-mannered. You might be unfamiliar with the concept.”

Kiyoomi laid the box on the ground with the plate on top of it. There were five cannelloni, just like there were five beers. Kiyoomi quickly decided he didn’t like the number anymore.

“You get two. I get three because I paid for them.”

“Cool, I get the last beer then.” Atsumu said, a smirk on his face that quickly fell when Kiyoomi pointed at his juice. “Have fun with yer apple juice, I guess.”

 _Oh, I will_. “Hard to have fun with anything as long as you’re around, but I’ll give it a try.”

“Ah, Omi-kun…” he shook his head and chuckled, as if he had just remembered a secret joke Kiyoomi was the subject of. “We _are_ friends, and ya might try to deny it, but I will die on this hill.”

 _Then perish_ , Kiyoomi wanted to say, but even he thought it was too out of character.

✸

Sakusa Kiyoomi met Miya Atsumu once in a sunny day in his first Interhigh Tournament, 2011, and he thought _what an asshole_ , and Atsumu looked at him and thought _what an asshole_ , and that has already been said, so let’s keep moving.

It was Motoya who elbowed him in the waist, said _hey, look_ , pointing with his chin at the two boys having a shouting competition in front of every other team. A heart on a sleeve, a heart on the floor. Kiyoomi kept his own dutifully tucked in the deepest recesses of his body. He could not imagine baring his emotions to a stadium where more than a thousand people watched them, where the players of every other team could take note of his weaknesses.

He could not imagine raising his voice above a whisper in the presence of strangers, but Motoya was dragging him out of that specific shell, and a lot of other ones.

After someone stepped in between the brothers, who at that point were more resembling of rabid dogs than human beings, one of them turned his head around, as if only then he noticed how much attention they’d gathered, before his eyes fixed in Kiyoomi, the cold sneer of his lips turning into an ugly grimace as their seniors ushered them away.

Kiyoomi would soon learn thanks to the announcer that the boy's name was Miya Atsumu, and he would soon know the bitter taste of defeat settling heavy on his tongue, laid there with callous smile and ten fingers under the ball, which will, on any occasion, allow for more control that two arms.

The concept of fated rivals didn’t cross Kiyoomi’s mind, but there was always something funny in the way that they kept encountering each other in tournaments, locked into a silent competition their teammates stayed blissfully unaware of. In the 2012 Interhigh, Kiyoomi rejoiced in the dark feeling of superiority dancing inside his chest as Atsumu held back tears in the second step of the podium. At Spring High, already 2013 then, Inarizaki was eliminated by the same orange haired midget that brought Ushijima down and Kiyoomi could strangle him, but then Itachiyama was eliminated by some godawful school that has won nothing before, and Karasuno went down too, so it was waste of time to think about that.

And then, while they shook hands before the start of the final match of their third year Spring High Tournament, Miya Atsumu said _best of three, then?_ and contrary to everything that he has come to know of himself, Kiyoomi said _bring it on._ Atsumu did exactly that.

✸

Adriah was the first to bring it, while Kiyoomi was sitting in the back of the gym, doing wrist stretches. People with hypermobile joints have an increased 37% chance of getting injured—sprains, dislocations, subluxations. He made the percentage in his head, but it's a good number. Keeps him on his toes.

He was not about to let his volleyball career end because he couldn't take fifteen minutes to stretch.

“It is nice,” Adriah said, looking at the ground. He was so shy it hurt to watch, because unlike Kiyoomi that didn't talk because he didn't want to, Adriah walked alongside Inunaki looking as if he had all the words known to men lodged inside his throat, and he wanted nothing more than to take part in a heated debate against eternity. “That you're getting along now. Not that it wasn't nice when you bickered around, but…”

Adriah frowned, the words suddenly leaving him. Kiyoomi frowned too, if only because it was hard to make sense of what Adriah was saying, or maybe it wasn’t that hard, but still he didn’t want to. It would be simpler if he didn’t understand. Disgraces never befall people who play dumb. Idiocy, in small measures, is a blessing. 

“What are you talking about?” he asked, remembering what Barnes said about keeping his expression upbeat. Adriah is like a tiny bunny who will hop off at the first sign of danger. Don’t look like you’re about to kill him, Sakusa. You’ll end up making the guy change teams and Inunaki will go for your throat.

Well, he couldn’t actually _smile_ without it looking horrendously fake, but he tried keeping the blankest expression possible. As if he was asking Adriah to repeat himself because he couldn’t hear the first time. Not because he didn’t want to.

“Uh… you and Atsumu. We’ve noticed that you’re talking more, and— just being better with each other, overall.” Adriah did that thing where he scratched the back of his neck, half embarrassed, and Kiyoomi never understood when some people found that to be cute, when to him it was just a plain way of showing ineptitude. But then, Kiyoomi was never one for shy boys himself. “Or maybe you aren’t, and I’m just making a fool of myself, ain’t I? I’m— I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Kiyoomi very much wanted to say that yes, Adriah was making a big fool of himself. An absolute clown of himself, because granted, Kiyoomi and Atsumu might be talking more, but they’re definitely not better with each other, because their whole relationship revolved around the permission to be callous and rude to each other without being scared of hurting anyone, because Kiyoomi didn’t care and Atsumu cared so much that any insult thrown at him is turned inside out until it sounds like a compliment. And, above all, they’re not friends, even if Atsumu told him so, even if Adriah didn’t need to tell him so for Kiyoomi to catch the underlying message.

They had this thing, in the Black Jackals, this thing that comes around with having overexcited players who wear their hearts on their sleeves and inside the pockets of their jackets and between their teeth, this thing that makes them feel like they’re not only teammates, but also— friends. And everyone was on clearly friendly terms, besides, of course, Atsumu and Kiyoomi themselves. But now they were too. How great! How exciting!

So yes, Kiyoomi wanted to ask Adriah if he was that stupid or if it was just a personality trait in America, but he could feel Inunaki’s eyes carving holes in the back of his neck, so he settled for the nice approach.

“You’re not. I guess we’ve been talking more, yes. One could say that.” Kiyoomi shrugged. It was important to show indifference. _One could say that_. “It’s— we’re teammates, so it’s important to communicate. I believe Miya’s finally learning that.”

Adriah nodded excitedly, opening his mouth again, and Kiyoomi was about to sigh, because— see, he liked Adriah. Adriah was a good person. A nice guy. Yes, he was taken, but he was hot and Kiyoomi was not opposed to the occult powers of a nice piece of ass. But he wasn’t in the mood to talk, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk about _Miya Atsumu_ , of all possible subjects of a civilized conversation, and he was bound to let it be known, sooner or later. And Inunaki was bound to kick him in the ass, sooner rather than later.

“Thomas! Sakusa! Come on, we’re all waiting!” They both turned their heads to see Meian shouting for them, while everyone was already occupying their planned positions for the scrimmage. Adriah ran in their direction like a child who sees the school’s gate is about to close. Kiyoomi couldn’t be expected to have the same energy.

Maybe Motoya was right. Maybe he was an old soul.

At the other side of the net, Inunaki threw him the ugliest look imaginable. _You’re not getting past me today, jerk,_ he mouthed. _But I didn’t do anything!_ Kiyoomi mouthed back, because he acted nice, for once, and he shouldn’t be punished for that. He should be rewarded. Niceness isn’t something that comes easily to him. It has to be plucked out of his chest, like a jewel. And he did that—he plucked the niceness out of his chest, for Adriah. And Inunaki refused to thank him, like any decent person would.

And then, to put the cherry at the top, Atsumu craned his neck to look at Kiyoomi, because of course they were in the same team, how could they not, when they’re such good friends, when they rejoice in each other’s presence, and he snickered. Fucking asshole just snickered, like Kiyoomi’s existence was some big joke someone could tell him over and over, and yet it never stopped being fun.

Kiyoomi wanted to kick him right in the middle of his back, send him flying back to Hyogo. Or maybe not his back. Maybe he could kick him in the ass. He didn’t want to hurt Atsumu that much. And he couldn’t be damned to know why.

✸

“Dude,” Atsumu began, arms behind his back and a sneer on his face. “Inunaki handed ya yer ass today.”

He was lying on Kiyoomi’s bed this time, because his room had somehow become the meeting point for whoever wanted to escape movie night, meaning himself and Atsumu. He should’ve known, however, that Atsumu wouldn’t manage to keep the nice and mildly well mannered self he showed on the first day. It wasn’t long before he was propping his feet on the tabletop, or eating chips while sitting on Kiyoomi’s bed, leaving crumbs all around.

But that was the thing. Atsumu always brought a pair of clean, shining white socks he would wear before getting his feet on top of any surface. And he always took the sheets he dirtied with those god awful diet banana chips of his and returned them laundered and smelling of Kiyoomi’s favorite fabric softener. So it wasn’t that bad. Atsumu wasn’t that bad, in the grand scheme of things.

He was just much more of a double-edged sword than Kiyoomi—and himself—would like to admit.

“I noticed.” Kiyoomi was sitting on his desktop chair, holding back the drive to spin. It was something Atsumu would do, not him.

One by one and sometimes in tens, the chips disappear inside Atsumu’s mouth. It was something of a bottomless pit. The _crunch crunch crunch_ was the sound that played inside Atsumu’s head, like an elevator jingle. A very crank elevator, who refused to open its doors for knowledge, or common sense.

Crunch crunch crunch. “So, what did ya do, threaten little Thomas with a knife? Or— oh, let me guess, ya invited him to movie night! Ya know he scares easily right. Guy’s like a little kitten. No wonder Wan-san is head over heels with him.”

Kiyoomi didn't know what to say to that, so he kept quiet. Atsumu would soon find something else to talk about—it was seemingly impossible for him to stop talking. As if words were water inside his lungs, and he had to keep pushing them out to keep breathing, to assure his own survival. Sometimes Kiyoomi wondered if Atsumu still kept talking, even when he was asleep. Or when he was having sex.

(what?)

And soon enough, as they both watched the slow-motion replay of the Red Falcons’ outside hitter slamming down the ball right on the libero—Kiyoomi always left some match on when Atsumu came, because he couldn’t dare to think of that as something besides the both of them staying together to study volleyball—and scoring still, Atsumu said “Shit, I haven’t bought the gift yet.” When Kiyoomi looked at him, there wasn’t anything in his face to indicate confusion or curiosity, but Atsumu picked it up even so. “For the wedding. It’s next month, and that’s plenty of time to buy something but I really don’t know what to take.”

“Kita-san being Kita-san, he'll like anything I give him. Them. But it's hard to think of those things. What newlyweds need in their homes. Maybe I should ask ‘Samu to buy something for me, but that feels like cheating and Kita-san doesn't deserve that.”

There was always something mildly deferential how Atsumu would speak about Inarizaki’s high school captain, like when he told a story about his younger days that usually ended up in a complete mess of which they only escaped by the grace of god. Or by the grace of Kita Shinsuke, which was mostly the same thing, according to Atsumu.

It was truly a strange way to talk about the guy who rejected your romantic advances when you were sixteen and meaner than what’s socially acceptable. Unless, of course, you’re still in love with him.

“You're really going, then?” Kiyoomi asked, tentatively, mindful of the possibility he might be provoking a beast out of slumber. Although he didn’t think Atsumu would react badly, even if he revealed to be still deeply enamored with his high school unrequited sweetheart. The beast in case, Kiyoomi pondered, was himself. “I thought you wouldn’t. Well— you know.”

“I don’t know.” Atsumu graced him with a smirk. More and more Kiyoomi found himself thinking about strange things, like smiles and cologne and alcohol. Or how Atsumu smiles as the ball hits the floor on the other side of the net, still spinning with the force the spiker put on it after a beautiful toss by him. Or how his cologne is slightly heavy in the nose, the wooden notes coming into the room seconds before him, yet it fits him perfectly. Or how he’s always buying beer for them. His favorite beverage is sake — rice obsession runs in the family — but he’s secretly a lightweight for it.

More and more Kiyoomi found himself thinking about things he better not.

“He turned you down, didn’t he?” Atsumu had told them the story in one of his drunken fits, right after word came around that Inunaki cornered Adriah in the bathroom stall on one of the last parties they all went together before the season started and made out with him so hard, poor American boy got weak knees the whole night. Atsumu was crying. Kiyoomi never figured out if it was because of his memories or because he had downed so many shots of vodka that night there must have been a pit fire at the end of his throat.

“At his graduation party, yes, he did.” Atsumu said it with the same tone inflexion he would use to say that it was windy outside or the food was cold. It was the tone Kiyoomi used for ninety-nine percent of his remarks about anything and anyone, but out of Atsumu’s mouth it sounded foreign and a whole degree of wrong. “Couldn’t blame him. I was a big fat jerk in high school, as Sunarin would put it.”

And that was— funny. In a lack of a better word. Funny because Kiyoomi had just brought a glass of water to his lips and he couldn’t help but cough after that and now there was water dripping down his chin, and water in his shirt, and even a little in his joggers.

In the bed, Atsumu was torn between laughing his ass off at him and looking offended at the same time. “I’m perfectly capable of admitting that, ya know! I am a man who’s able to learn from his past mistakes. I am capable of _growth_ , Omi-kun! I need ya to believe in me.”

“I do.” And he did, grabbing a clean t-shirt before marching into the bathroom to clean his face and the mess he made. “But you’re _still_ a big fat jerk.”

“Come on, ya knew me in high school. I was much worse.”

He was. Tremendously worse. Infuriatingly worse. _Adverb indicative of high intensity_ worse; but Kiyoomi settled for an affirmative nod. He placed the wet shirt in the dirty clothes bin, washed his hand, put on a clean one, washed his hands again, and applied a drop of sanitizer before sitting at the edge of the bed.

Afterwards, he would wonder why he didn’t go for the chair, why he chose to be in such close proximity with Atsumu’s feet, with the chip crumbs, with Atsumu. And he wouldn’t have an answer for that. Lately, Kiyoomi has been finding himself with less and less answers.

“I was a jerk—an even bigger jerk than now—, and it was no wonder Kita-san rejected me. ‘Samu told me it would happen, because at that time Kita-san and Aran-kun already had some sort of thing going on, but I was in love with him, so of course I ignored that.” It was the first time Atsumu used the word _love_ to refer to that. When he told them about it, it was always a crush, or the guy he _liked_ , even though his voice let on more emotions than _like_ could ever hope to contain. “Looking back at it now I can see he was way too good for me. I don’t think— I would have made a bad boyfriend. I know that.”

Kiyoomi didn’t know what was an adequate answer to that, so he kept silent. His eyes turned back to the television, where the game had just finished, and the Red Falcons reigned superior. Kiyoomi thought about Miya Atsumu, and Ojiro Aran, and Kita Shinsuke, who had warmed the bench all the way into the semifinals of his second year Spring High Tournament only to emerge as captain in the next year.

He knew the demon warming against the pit of his belly by name, and it was called envy.

“Passport case.”

“What?”

“When Motoya’s older sister married, one gift she and her husband received was a very fancy passport case, in leather.” Motoya’s other two sisters had married, later, but by then Kiyoomi was already adept at finding excuses to be absent. “They were going abroad for the honeymoon, so— well. It came in handy, I believe.”

He couldn’t say if he was doing that to be nice or because he didn’t want Atsumu to spend another second thinking about a past almost-lover. It didn’t matter, right? That was what he tried to convince himself of.

“Wow, I mean— I was thinking maybe a cookbook, but this is _so_ much better. Omi-kun, yer kinda of a genius.” I'm _not_ , Kiyoomi wanted to say, because he didn’t want to be deified, didn’t want to be put on a pedestal where he would become unreachable. Like Kita Shinsuke. He didn’t want to be _too good._ He wanted to be _just fine_. “I bet ‘Samu is gonna get them a cookbook with 1001 rice recipes or something equally stupid.”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi said, consumed with a sudden urge to agree.

“Ya know what, I’m gonna to look into it right now.” Atsumu got up, and for a minute Kiyoomi wanted to say _it’s a terrible gift forget about it_ which was a roundabout way of saying _don’t go_ and he hated it. Hated feeling like that. Hated what was going on, whatever was going on that he didn’t have a name for, had nothing besides a bad feeling diving between his lungs. Hated it and hated it and hated it.

Instead, he got up, his body betraying no emotion or second thought, while Atsumu got the bedsheets bundled for washing, even after Kiyoomi telling him he could do it himself. _Can’t dirty yer sheets and leave them like that, Omi-kun, what are the people going to think?_ And he winked.

And he winked, and thanked Kiyoomi for the idea, and left, like people always do, at one point or another, walking out of doors that lead them to places unknown and futures uncharted into the pathways between different galaxies.

All Kiyoomi could think of were stars falling in place, stars falling apart.

✸

No one tells love will burn your bones to dust.

No one likes to talk about the bad things, 'cause love is supposed to be this all fulfilling feeling, this thing you can drink from in the middle of a desert, this thing both your cells and the stars are made of. Love is patient, love is kind, and a litany of other assorted lies.

So Kiyoomi, who had never been in love before, tranquilized himself on the fact that he still felt the need to physically strangle Atsumu four times a day. It couldn’t be love. He wouldn't feel like this, if it was.

This thing—this falling off of every little block he carefully stacked up to build his life, this wasn’t love. It was a disease. Kiyoomi was infected by Miya Atsumu, like people who fell from the cholera thinking it was love because the symptoms were the same. He was not in love. He was sick.

After the hand sanitizer, and the masks, and the three baths per day; after everything. He was so sick he couldn’t remember what it felt like, being healthy.

The good point is: if it wasn’t love, then there was no problem when he stared at the back of Atsumu’s head so hard that Atsumu, feeling it, stared right back. There was no problem when he took a little longer in the locker room after practice, waiting for Atsumu to come out of the shower so he could get a glimpse of a chest, of the muscles that weave themselves into Atsumu’s pelvis, and abdomen, and thighs.

There was no problem—in fact, Kiyoomi might say, this is the cure. Like a fever, he needed to sweat it out, needed to shiver as it consumed him for the smallest fraction of time before leaving as suddenly as it came.

It would leave. Kiyoomi knew it would. It had to. 

Meanwhile, in the long and excruciating period of time known to humankind as waiting, Kiyoomi did whatever he did when his life threatened to fall apart, which before had only happened when he was about to fail his next discipline at college and get stuck in Nagoya for six more months, losing the contract he had just signed up with the Jackals.

He called Motoya.

Calling Motoya was always a catch, because he handled his advice in metaphors without explanation or, in Kiyoomi’s humble opinion, any meaning. Still, it wasn’t like he had anyone else to go to. Motoya was the champion, the one strong enough to stick around, even when Kiyoomi forced him to take three baths daily during their entire time in high school.

And then Motoya went pro straight after graduation, and Kiyoomi was alone again—alone as he had almost forgotten how to be.

Motoya picked up at the first ring, because he was addicted to social media and, apart from court, could always be seen with his phone in hand. “Kiyoomi!” he said, his voice like light reflected on a prism, multicolored to Kiyoomi’s black and grey palette. “You haven’t called me in _decades_.”

Kiyoomi hummed in agreement, because it was true, and he had nothing to say about it. It wasn’t like Motoya expected anything, either. By then he was used to Kiyoomi like a blade to a whetstone. “So,” Motoya kept going, because otherwise they would end up eating phone static for five minutes. “In which way exactly is the world ending this time?”

It would be stupid to start with _so, there’s this boy_ , and Kiyoomi already regretted the call, because there was no other way to say it, because there was this boy, and everything went downhill with him; because it was all fine before him, and now Kiyoomi couldn’t break out of this fever. Now he was standing in the gates of hell.

“Hypothetically,” he started, because the best way to talk about this was pretending it didn’t exist. Because last time he asked Motoya what would happen if he hypothetically were to fail his last exams and Motoya said of course he wouldn’t fail, but if he did he could explain the situation to his teachers and do all the activities while everyone was in vacation, finishing it in two months; and then he could play and only come back to Nagoya for the graduation ceremony.

And now he hoped for Motoya to say that of course he wasn’t in love with Atsumu, but if he was— then Motoya could find a way for him to get out of it. Kiyoomi spent ten years taking Motoya out of dozens of impossible situations he got himself into, and now it was retribution time.

“Hypothetically,” he said, again, as if that could solidify the fact that he was talking about something completely hypothetical, in no way happening right at that instant. “If I was to be… feeling attraction towards someone—”

“I’m listening.”

“Don’t interrupt me. Look, how do you know if you want to kiss someone because you want to bone them right after or because you just want to kiss them? How do you know there’s a feeling involved besides... Horniness?”

Motoya sucked in a breath. After all these years, it was still weird talking to him through a phone. It was weird not having him by his side. “I— I don’t know. I mean, I think, well, I think there’s this kind of… urgency, you know, when you just wanna fuck someone, there’s this feeling you gotta do it right now, ‘cause you might die tomorrow and oh how it would be a shame to die without sucking that dick. You follow me?”

“More or less.” Was there an urgency when he thought about kissing Atsumu? Was there a need to do it, right now, before a hurricane swept them both from the face of the earth?

Would Kiyoomi be calling Motoya instead of banging Atsumu’s door and grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and smashing their mouths together, then?

“I don’t know why you thought I would be qualified to give you that answer.”

“Well,” Kiyoomi said, and there was the smallest bit of a drawl in his voice, of a smile on his lips. “You were kinda of a slut in high school. And after.”

“Whoa there! Let’s mind our words, shall we?” Kiyoomi could imagine him clearly, lying belly down on the bed, face propped in his hand, trying not to laugh. “I was never a slut.”

“The three guys you dated at the same time disagree.”

“Okay, so maybe I was a slut, once! You can’t slut-shame me. It’s likely in your genes, too. We all have our slutty phases in this family, you just didn’t reach yours yet.”

Motoya’s slutty phase has been going on for five years, give or take, but Kiyoomi doesn’t tell him that. He’s more worried about his own impending slutty phase. Is Miya Atsumu the first one of the many guys he’s gonna get the hots for, in the next five years? It was not such a grim prospect. It was better than being in love with him.

_Please, let it be my slutty phase._

“But you didn’t call me to talk about me, come on. So, pray tell me.” Sometimes, Kiyoomi entertains himself with the thought Motoya would fit nicely between the main characters of Mean Girls (2004). “Who’s this modern Adonis that grabbed your heart? Or your dick? I need details. You can’t just tell me the world is ending and leave it at that.”

Quite the contrary, the best option would be to hang up exactly at the moment, while he could be fairly certain that he was not in love, that this was all his dick wanting some action, that it was just his family’s slutty genes waking up from the slumber they were supposed to stay perpetually. He could tell Motoya it was just a guy, a reporter or something, and say goodbye to him, and leave it at that.

But Kiyoomi was always honest with himself. Or tried to. And he didn’t call Motoya so that his cousin could tell him word for word what he wanted to hear. He called Motoya so he could understand this thing growing inside of him. He called Motoya so he could try to find the truth he was hoping to swallow, inside.

“It’s Miya,” he said, after a minute of silence. “Miya Atsumu.”

It was an italicized oh moment, but Kiyoomi would never do that, so Motoya, ever helpful, did it for him.

“Oh, I mean— _oh_. Miya Atsumu? I mean— you know. He’s hot. I’m gonna give you that, ‘cause he’s got the thighs, seriously.” _Yes, he got them_ , Kiyoomi could say, if only he had a drop of courage, or a drop of liquor in his organism. _I’ve been staring at them. A lot._ “He was kind of jerk in high school, but hey, people change, don’t—”

“He’s still a jerk.”

“Then why? Slutty phase or not, I know you, Kiyoomi. You can’t stand jerks. There’s only space for one in your life, and it’s you.” He was right, or maybe he wasn’t anymore, because there was no denying Atsumu was a jerk, but Kiyoomi was pretty sure he could find space for him. If Atsumu wanted Kiyoomi to. “So out with it. I had to pause _MasterChef_ so we could have this conversation.”

Okay, Kiyoomi thought. Okay, I can do this. Sweat out the fever. “He _is_ a jerk, but he isn’t— a bad one? I couldn’t stand him, at first, but he’s kind of like you, in the sense that he didn’t let himself be unfazed by me. He kept growing closer and closer, and one day he would talk to me about TV shows after practice, and the next he would help me stretch, and it was okay. It felt fine, I know, ‘cause we're teammates and teammates help each other stretch and talk to each other about stupid things like TV shows. But then he started showing himself into my room, and I let him because, well, what could happen? And now something has fucking happened, because I think about him all day, and whenever he comes to my room I hate the concept of time ‘cause it means he has to leave, and I stare at his ass way to hard in practice, and I jerked off thinking about him once, but it felt weird. And everyone comes at me and tells me how great it is now that we’re friends but we’re not friends. You aren’t supposed to think of your tongue in your friend's mouth, or your dick in his ass. I don’t know what we are. I don’t know what I want to be with him.”

Kiyoomi had to take a breath after that, his throat dry, his heart banging against his ribcage like a bird, ready to fly— to where? To whom?

“So, you get it?” he asked, after thirty seconds in which Motoya didn’t start a laughing fit to tell how stupidly horny he was. “That the world is ending?”

“ _Oh.”_ Again, this time in italics. “Oh my god Kiyoomi, this isn’t— Kiyoomi,” and then Motoya opened his big, stupid mouth and said, “You’re in—” 

And Kiyoomi ended the call.

(one can be _in_ a lot of things, however. so kiyoomi messaged motoya, later, when his hands stopped shaking, and his lungs learned once again how to hold the air inside for more than half a second. he messaged motoya, his fingers slowly pressing the keys, staring so hard at the words they stopped having any meaning.

**i’m in what?**

motoya, god bless his soul, for sticking around, for being the one kiyoomi confided his whole life, gives him the medicine he needed all along.

**in love!!!**

kiyoomi deleted his number, which was useless, as everything else turned out to be)

✸

Alcohol was humankind's chief instrument of auto sabotage. There was no way of finding out who was the potential millionaire who thought it would be a good idea to drink fermented water from mashed grapes, but here they all were, six thousand years later. Kiyoomi could bet the person was in fact someone devising a plan to get rid of humanity and hand Earth back to the dinosaurs.

Alcohol had its own category on the weapons of mass destruction list.

It was alcohol that served as an excuse for Atsumu to get inside his room that fateful day, _oh Kiyoomi, how can you be so heartless to let this delicious beer grow warm!_ and other excuses. So he let Atsumu in his room, and at some point after that he let Atsumu in his life, in his mind, in his heart, in every pore of his skin. He let Atsumu inside himself. Figuratively. For now.

Or forever. Who knows? If Kiyoomi was Atsumu, he wouldn’t want to date himself. If Kiyoomi was any of the other seven billions of people sharing planet earth, he wouldn’t want to date himself.

But Kiyoomi is just him— Kiyoomi. And he kind of maddeningly wanted Atsumu to want to date him. For a day. Just enough for him to see how stupid that idea was and go back to the hating Atsumu mode, which was comfortable for him as his warmest blank, and not something terrifying like this whole deal of not hating Miya Atsumu was.

It was worse with Atsumu sitting by his side instead of his usual place a few chairs down, besides Bokuto. It was worse under the dim lighting of the restaurant Hinata had chosen, under the heat of the grill as the meat slowly cooked in front of them, under the laughing of their teammates, still elated after the win, serotonin pouring from their brains like a monsoon.

It was worse with Atsumu’s cheeks painted red after meager three cups of sake, his hands brushing Kiyoomi’s every time they went for their respective drinks.

It was his own designated hell.

And alcohol was how Kiyoomi was getting through that night, unscathed. Unblemished. A paragon of how not to tell your friend or rival or something in between you want to suck his dick. And kiss him. And then keep kissing him for a while.

He was reaching for the _shochu_ bottle — the only thing strong enough to make him survive in the place for the next two hours — when Atsumu’s hand circled his wrist, stopping his motion. Atsumu’s fingers pressed against his skin, against his bone, touching him.

Kiyoomi had let Atsumu touch him, before. But not like this. Not as if it mattered.

“Someone’s stressed today, huh?” Atsumu said, his pupils blown, his smile open, the yellow of his hair warm and inviting. Kiyoomi found out how hard it was, trying to talk while your heart is lodged in your throat. “Let’s take it easy, big boy. This thing can take down an elephant faster than Shou-kun there can score.”

Said Shou-kun was looking at them from above the rim of his own cup, passing glances meant to give Kiyoomi the impression he wasn’t being observed. He would gladly go back to the time Hinata let them all think he was this stupid orange boy. Besides him, however, everyone at the table seemed to be trapped into their own little words—Meian and Barnes talking about the match, Adriah giggling as he fed Inunaki with scraps of meat, Bokuto bumping his elbows in the condiment bowls as he gestured to Akaashi, who watched him enraptured by the phone screen, his arms forever ready to embrace the scorching heat of a star. And Atsumu with his fingers wrapped around Kiyoomi’s wrist, Atsumu with his red cheeks, Atsumu whose speech still wasn’t blurred, but it was getting there.

Atsumu who had managed the inconceivable feat of driving Kiyoomi insane with lust. And rage. At the same time.

“I’m not stressed,” Kiyoomi answered, the other hand flying to the bottle faster than Atsumu could hope to catch him, filling his cup with only a slight tremor to reveal his inner turmoil. “I’m tired, that's all. It was a tough game.”

With touches like that, there was bound to be a time, or so he thought, beyond which keeping in contact became uncomfortable for both parties. Atsumu should know that—he was an expert in making people uncomfortable. One of his many unusual talents, like touching his nose with the tip of his tongue or knowing when his twin was going to call exactly five second before his phone started to ring.

Atsumu knew that. Kiyoomi knew Atsumu knew that. And yet—

“Was it? I mean, ya were kinda amazing in the court today, Omi-kun.” Flattery, however, was not one of Atsumu’s talents. “Every time I tossed the ball to you, it was like _wham!_ and score!”

Kiyoomi gulped a third of his drink. There was something very fuzzy starting to take hold of his brain. “That’s ‘cause your sets are easy to hit.”

“Yeah, they are.” Like it was the only known thing in existence. Like it was the only thing Atsumu could ever be sure of.

And when Atsumu let go of Kiyoomi’s wrist to reach for a piece of meat and all Kiyoomi could think of was saying _please, don’t_ and all he could think of doing was reaching for Atsumu’s arm, or his neck, and kissing him in front of everyone, that should have been enough of a warning sign. Rose colored glasses and red flags. That was the biggest red flag Kiyoomi had ever seen in his life. That was mother earth screaming at him to stop, for god’s sake, turn back, before it’s too late, before you regret it. Turn back and don’t ever think about this again. Turn back and leave the building blocks of your life standing intact in the place you have chosen for them.

The thing is—one did not turn back, in volleyball. Kiyoomi was always looking up, so much his neck hurt, after. And when he wasn’t, he was looking in front of him, the ball ricocheting off his arm towards Atsumu’s hands, a perfect pass for a perfect toss. And then, when he wasn’t, he was looking down, at the place the ball touched the floor on the opposite side of the court after a perfect strike.

To look back was to watch as the ball flew past him, as the other team managed to exploit a weak point and score on it. Kiyoomi had few philosophies in court. Not looking back was one of them.

It was only expected it would end up permeating other aspects of his life, too.

So instead of backing down, like every sane cell of his body was begging him to, Kiyoomi moved forward. 

They say that major decisions in life can suspend the perception of time, even if it only for a quick second, or half of it. Like floating on still waters, like tiptoeing around the edge of the world and waiting for a fall that doesn’t come.

It was stupid. If anything, Kiyoomi didn’t think time could pass so fast, because if it stopped for the smallest amount possible, if it had given him a millisecond more to think, he would’ve stayed quiet, and he would’ve come back to his dorm and slept it out, and in the next day he would have started putting things right where they were supposed to be. 

But Atsumu was laughing at some joke Hinata cracked before excusing himself to some _fresh air_ which was his casual way of saying he was going to dirty talk with his boyfriend on the phone, and all Kiyoomi could think was the white of his teeth and the pink of his tongue and all the other places that tongue could have been in. 

In direct opposition to everything Kiyoomi had ever told himself, when he grabbed Atsumu’s wrist, he didn’t think. And then, after, when Atsumu looked at him, his eyes the color of wet earth, the smell of it after rain, a pretty word Kiyoomi couldn’t remember even if it held the key to everything, not with Atsumu’s skin against his, not with the axis of his world tilted, falling, gone. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, pulling the words out one by one, tortuously, so Atsumu couldn’t feign ignorance, blame the shitty music coming from the speakers for not hearing him. “Tell me.” It was a plea. Tell me. Tell me. If Kiyoomi could kneel, he would have. Tell me before it kills me. Tell me before it burns me whole.

“What. Kiyoomi.” Atsumu said, the letters rolling out his tongue so easily as if he had said them a hundred times already. He had never called Kiyoomi by his name before. “What.”

He wasn’t drunk—Kiyoomi could see it now, in the shine of his eyes, on the cutting curve of his lips, chipping away the last stone Kiyoomi had raised around himself. Maybe he was getting better at handing his sake. Maybe he was waiting for this all along.

It would be better if he were drunk, because Kiyoomi was. Or was he? And if they both were drunk, then it was nobody’s fault. No guilty party. If they both were drunk it was just a matter of waking up tomorrow and pretending forgetfulness. By then lying came easier to Kiyoomi’s tongue than he had ever hoped it to.

“You tell me what.” He ducked their hands under the table just as Inunaki gave them a quick glance before shrugging. He was putting enough force to bruise— it was a strange thing, wanting to hurt someone. Kiyoomi wanted Atsumu’s wrist to bruise, a purple bracelet for him to remember how weak he made Kiyoomi to be. “Because I’m tired of trying to find out. It’s driving me insane.”

He wanted Atsumu to have something to remember him, as he would have weight inside his heart, Atsumu’s deepest intrusion into his personal space.

Under him, Atsumu was still as a statue, waiting. For— what? Kiyoomi couldn’t tell. Kiyoomi wanted to shake him so Atsumu would tell everything, the what and then the how and then the why. But then Atsumu smiled, slowly, sharp like a knife between Kiyoomi’s lungs. Life was spilling out of him over the restaurant’s table at nine o’clock at night. The best way of enjoying your Saturdays. 

“I’ll tell ya,” he said, and now that the decision had been made, it was a lethargic, crawl-like, Guiness World Record for longest bleeding. “What.” I’ll tell you all you want to hear and all you want to, because it’s a package deal, transitory happiness and long-lasting misery. “Not here, though.”

Not here, in the open. Not here, in front of everyone. Not here, where it would be final. Known. Permanent.

And then Atsumu rose up, David stepping down from his pedestal, brushing dust from his limbs. There was no stretched hand for Kiyoomi to take, no whistle for him to follow. There was only the tickle of seconds as Kiyoomi pondered how long until it was deemed acceptable for him to leave. One hundred forty-seven seemed ideal. But then, all numbers beyond sixty-four did; and all his action after this are going to end up in the most inevitable shipwreck he’d ever steered himself into. Straight to Scylla’s whirlpool, Charybdis on her flank. 

All heroes are foolish. Kiyoomi was no hero, and yet—

Yet he followed, because it was a hard thing not to do, with a pretty boy waiting for you, your fate secured between his teeth.

Kiyoomi put on his rose-colored glasses and stood up. Heart eyes for the man in the bathroom that is waiting to eat yours.

✸

Hinata was the one who had life changing revelations while in public restrooms, not Kiyoomi.

He would have chosen somewhere cleaner, but he was seeing himself crippled of choice more and more these days. Sometimes like wood drifting in calm water, waiting, and sometimes like a branch torn from its tree by the force of the current, ruthlessly carried towards the waterfall.

Atsumu wouldn’t like to be compared to a waterfall. He wasn’t about metaphors, nor pleasant things. Atsumu was quick and dirty, hastily done assignments, two wide brushstrokes on a canvas. Inarizaki black and white; MSBY black and gold. Black, either way—the color that keeps all its secrets to itself.

He was standing by the mirror, wet hands trying to get his messy hair more in place. Somewhere inside himself, Kiyoomi thought it was cute, how Atsumu was tidying himself up—for him.

And then, of course, he thought of Atsumu’s hands falling down to the sink as he turned to face Kiyoomi, his knuckles as white as the marble under them, and thought of the bathroom they were standing in, and their teammates out there, and his own hands and the space between them where something was missing, the solid weight of the unknown.

And then, of course, it wasn’t cute anymore. It was terrifying.

“So,” Atsumu said, and for a second Kiyoomi had the intuition that Atsumu didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to tell him what _what_ was. A strange thing for a man that always had a word ready at the tip of his tongue (though rarely the right one) to stand speechless in the precipice of a situation he put himself in. “I guess ya wanna an explanation, after all.”

Kiyoomi nodded, and then, to make it real, opened his mouth. “Yes.”

Atsumu smiled and it was a lot of things Kiyoomi didn’t expect it to be, and yet as Atsumu had always been. He could cut his finger on the edge of it. It wasn’t a smile. It was something else. The same way what Kiyoomi felt for Atsumu wasn’t love; but something else.

“Sucks to be ya, ‘cause I don’t have one.” He shrugged. Kiyoomi had noticed that Atsumu tended to do that, when he had dozens of words inside his throat and no way to get them out in a coherent way. “I mean, do ya? ‘Cause I wanna hear it. ‘Cause— well.” When he laughs, it says _this isn’t fun at all_. Somehow Kiyoomi supposed this was not how love declarations were supposed to go, but then, this wasn’t love. “I’m as lost as ya seem to be.”

Kiyoomi had nothing besides a feeling in his chest which he couldn’t name, so he shook his head and walked until he was side by side with Atsumu. With a clothed elbow, he turned the faucet on, carefully washing his hands—he hadn't touched anything, but the place seemed to ask for it, like the dirt seeped into the air and clung to their bones.

“I thought— you always seem to know what you’re doing. I thought you knew.” Why, and how, and especially, what. “To be honest, I know. And you know, too. But it feels like there isn’t any word in the dictionary that fits. All of them seem… wrong.”

He had a thousand reasons for why it wasn’t love, and only a hundred for why it wasn’t passion. Desire, though, seemed to focused on the material part of it, on the longing for Atsumu’s body between his, but it did not explain the nights turning on his bed, thinking about Atsumu’s hands on his hair; not pulling, just—threading through it, like one does to the thing it loves the most.

Love, he would say, again, and again, wasn’t the word. Love is good, and this was bittersweet, at most—and Kiyoomi was sure all the sweetness was inside his head.

He was sure he was going after something whose expiration date was more than near.

But he needed a taste of it, first. Just so he wouldn’t have any doubts about how spoiled it was. Like a kid that had to put all the things inside its mouth to know what they were, even the ones found on the floor.

Especially those.

Kiyoomi didn’t think Atsumu could look more beautiful by the flickering light of a dingy bathroom than he was outside, in a match, but then, months ago the thought of feeling more for Atsumu than hate wouldn’t have crossed his mind, and now there he was. There they were.

Which wasn’t to say he didn’t hate Atsumu anymore. Just that there was another, unnamed side to it.

“Okay,” Atsumu said, breaking the spell. The thing shining in his eyes was the same as when they were facing a particularly tough match, when he saw the path that would grant them their laurels. “Look, I’m just gonna kiss ya, and then— then we see how it goes from there. Ya down to it?”

Kiyoomi would like to tell him he was down to absolutely anything that would help him understand what was going on and why his brain had decided to act in the opposite way it had been going from over twenty years, but it was too much.

“Fine.”

He couldn’t think of a love story that went on like this.

Atsumu laughed, again, and this time Kiyoomi thought at least he seemed to be having fun, even if it was at his expense. And then Atsumu had backed Kiyoomi by the sink, and then his hands were on Kiyoomi’s waist, and then his neck, and Kiyoomi thought he should put his hands somewhere too, because all this time he’d been dreaming of it, and now there it was, right in front of him.

And then Atsumu looked up, into his eyes, and said, “Come on, Kiyoomi, ya can touch me.” 

And then Atsumu kissed him.

Kiyoomi would like to say that it went horribly, and that at that moment he could finally see the error of his ways, how confused he had made himself to be. He would like to say that he stormed out of the restaurant and went home, and in the next day he had a talk with Atsumu, who had also decided that the thing going on between them was just a byproduct of stress and what else, and that he would like to go back to the state they were before, when they hated each other and didn’t want to pounce into each other’s throats. Or kiss each other.

The thing is, Kiyoomi wasn’t sure that state existed. The thing is, it didn’t go horribly.

The thing, to sum it up, is: his hands find purchase in the jut of Atsumu’s hip bones, and he can finally understand why they had been craving that for so long. One of Atsumu’s hands travels from his face to his hair, pulling it when he wanted Kiyoomi to open his mouth for him, so he did that. So he let Atsumu’s tongue inside his mouth, and he let Atsumu press him against the sink of some dirty bathroom downtown until he could feel the stone biting his back and something pressing against his thigh which took him two seconds to figure out it was Atsumu’s cock.

And so the limb-loosener crushed him: desire. Atsumu’s breath against his face when they part. Atsumu’s lip between his teeth. Atsumu’s body against him, hot and hotter and melting. Physiology of love. If love is a fire that never goes out then Kiyoomi is dust at the edge of his horizon. He is what remains.

His hands found the clasp of Atsumu's belt, his fingers steady, his heart thumping, deafening loud, the race horse crossing the finish line, undefeated. _It’s a bad idea_ , he told himself. It’s the temptation to be a part of someone else. So he looked into Atsumu’s eyes for an answer and found none.

(and how could it be a bad idea, when it turned him on?)

Atsumu raised one eyebrow, his lip shining with spit, his eyes with something else. He didn’t say anything. It would’ve ruined everything, if he did.

In silence, Kiyoomi sank to his knees. There was, he could see, some kind of glory in it.

✸

Loneliness, as a concept, was a monster eating his entrails.

Kiyoomi had always been lonely, in some form or other, so it shouldn’t feel like something new, like something he couldn’t stand, like something that would get him killed.

Love is a lack. The edge between lover and beloved, between you and the object of your desire. The edge between Kiyoomi and Atsumu had never felt bigger, more unbridgeable, than when Kiyoomi hears Atsumu laugh with Hinata, than when he watches him jumping on Bokuto’s back, celebrating a set point. 

Love is a lack and Kiyoomi is lacking common sense. Self respect. The ability to shake himself off it, to climb out of this pit he fell into—was thrown into. By Atsumu. Or Miya. He was back at being Miya, now. He was back at the point before the beginning. He was worse than when he started.

Love is the lack between Kiyoomi’s ribs, the space that he’d just found out was supposed to be filled by Miya Atsumu. And it’s funny, all those times he said to himself that it wasn’t love, that it was something else, something unknown. And then Kiyoomi felt to his knees and sucked Atsumu’s cock and the other day Atsumu couldn’t stand the sight of him, and then, and only then, he let himself accept what it was. Love. What a wretched combination of letters. Some symbols should never be made understandable.

Because love is a lack, and Kiyoomi, who does not recognize this creature turned inside out in itself, this being rooted inside his ribcage, alien and unwanted— and Kiyoomi, body still on the mattress, his cells breaking apart, reaching for a map, an answer, a way; Kiyoomi is lacking, most of all, himself.

✸

The day after Kiyoomi kneels between the legs of the man he loves and takes his cock in the mouth in the bathroom of a restaurant where all their teammates are waiting for them goes like this:

Atsumu does not look at him at breakfast, or at lunch, or at any other time of the day. Kiyoomi misses five of the seven tosses Atsumu sends in his direction. They’ve been made impossible to hit. They’ve been sent in a specific way to make him fail. Kiyoomi knows that. Atsumu doesn’t call him a scrub, miraculously, but that was likely because he didn’t want to talk to Kiyoomi at all. 

When the coach pulls him out, Kiyoomi sits on the bench, drinks a gulp of water, and can only think that something has been unceremoniously fucked up.

Still in silence, he sits at the foot of his bed, at night, waiting for a knock, for a call, for a SOS written in the sand of his skin. He thinks about good ideas, and bad ones, and how all this was the worst he’d ever had. 

Kiyoomi thinks about the name of this feeling nestled deep inside his chest, and how he’d could fall so deep. How could he do that? But then, how could he not?

Atsumu does not knock, or call, or send him a SOS message. Atsumu’s world keeps spinning, faster than before, out of reach and out of hope, while Kiyoomi has stopped altogether, his feet planted where the floor was just a minute before, where now there’s nothing. Where now there’s only a lack of what it wasn’t before.

Humans in love, Kiyoomi thinks, are terrible. And he says that as one himself.

✸

When Kiyoomi opened the door to Inunaki’s room, ready to bury his sorrows in the wildly implausible scenarios of whatever horror movie they were about to watch, and found Atsumu already sitting by the foot of the sofa, popcorn bucket on his lap, he was sure the universe was trying to teach him something.

Like a sinner who refuses to repent, so everything around him makes it impossible to keep living like that, nature bending itself for him to realize his mistakes. Kiyoomi was the protagonist of his own movie about unreciprocated feelings and how not to let rejection affect your workplace. 

Needless to say, he was worse than the guy who stepped into the basement after hearing strange voices coming from it all night long.

“Omi-Omi, you came!” Bokuto said, waving, like Kiyoomi couldn’t see his anomaly of hair a mile away. He was sitting beside Atsumu on the floor, but jumped to the sofa, sprawling himself against Hinata’s open legs. “You can sit next to Tsum-Tsum! I know you like sitting on the floor best.”

Bokuto wasn’t stupid. No one is—there’s specific type of intelligence for everyone, Kiyoomi believed. Still, Bokuto wasn’t stupid even in the common sense of the word. Yes, Kiyoomi preferred to sit on the floor. It was easy for him to snooze off when sitting somewhere too comfortable, especially after practice, especially after Atsumu’s tosses ground him to dust again. And yes, Bokuto knew Atsumu and Kiyoomi weren’t in the best moment of their relationship, if one may say so.

Everyone on the team knew. It wasn’t as if Atsumu went to great efforts to disguise his antipathy. Though loathing might come closer to the real deal.

Atsumu snickered, throwing a sideways glance at Kiyoomi before turning back to the television. He must have thought no one would see it, but Kiyoomi would like very much to tell him that, if anything, the whole ignorance thing only made him become ten times more attuned to every gesture of Atsumu since then. He wouldn’t say it, of course. It made him look like some lovestruck cartoon character, blinking hearts for eyes. Which was true, but he didn’t want anyone to know. Last of all Atsumu.

“Okay,” he said, walking to his assigned place as if he wouldn’t prefer sitting next to a ticking bomb than to Miya Atsumu. 

Inunaki, with his legs all over Adriah's lap—he was gonna leave that room traumatized, Kiyoomi could tell—pressed play. _Hereditary_. Ghost movie. Again.

Kiyoomi could remember with uncanny precision how Atsumu confided him that he got so scared after watching Rings, even though the movie is all about lazy jumpscares and storylines that made no sense whatsoever, that his stomach turned all night long. He wasn’t supposed to be there. That was why Kiyoomi had come, because he knew—he hoped—Atsumu wouldn’t.

He tried to focus, but it was hard when all his mind wanted to think about was if Atsumu was, like him, trying to fill his head with the most useless things so as to forget the things that were important, the things that left him awake at night, eyes on the ceiling, thinking until his head was about to burst.

But it made little sense, because this mess, he thought, was Atsumu’s doing, and Atsumu could easily solve it. 

Kiyoomi liked to search for answers. Maybe, he thought, it was a game. Like teenage boys betting on who can make the girl fall first, so Atsumu played him to see if he could unmake Kiyoomi with his fingertips. Maybe he didn’t want to go that far. Maybe now that Kiyoomi had indeed sucked his cock, he didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t supposed to get _that_ far. 

Maybe Atsumu didn’t expect someone to really fall in love with him.

But it didn’t seem right. Because it didn’t seem fake—the nights lying down on Kiyoomi’s bed, leaving chip crumbs everywhere. The time they spent talking, the walks to Onigiri Miya so Atsumu could bully his brother into giving him free onigiri, and then some for Kiyoomi too. The practices after everyone had left the gym, Atsumu dreaming of another monster set, all-in-one, and Kiyoomi’s arms receiving one after the other, the skin red and itchy, until he couldn’t stay on his feet anymore, until he couldn’t pinpoint where the ball was going to fall before it was already on the ground.

Kiyoomi didn’t feel led on. It would be better, if he did—it would make it easier to get angry, to hate. Instead, he was confused, thrown out to the sea in the dark, his raft taken by the waves into dark and deep waters, lost.

With enough free time, he could create a thousand scenarios in his head: Atsumu was too drunk that night and now he was scared of facing what they did; or maybe he didn’t even remember it fully. Kiyoomi was really bad at sucking cock and Atsumu didn’t want to date him after that. Atsumu was flirting with him — was he? Kiyoomi can’t help but doubt now — for the thrill of it and didn’t expect things to end with Kiyoomi on his knees between his legs. Atsumu wanted nothing more than a fuckbuddy and Kiyoomi messed everything up when he decided to fall in love. Kiyoomi, however, would like to leave it clear that he didn’t decide anything. If Miya Atsumu were the only person in the world he could have chosen to fall in love with, then he would’ve chosen not to.

Kiyoomi sighed while everyone screamed, popcorn flying from Atsumu’s lap into his hair, Hinata foot kicking his shoulder. If he wasn’t going to stop thinking about Atsumu, and at least he could’ve done that from the comfort of his own room.

After a while, he extended his hand to Atsumu, waiting for him to pass the popcorn. Atsumu had the habit of shamelessly monopolizing the bucket every single time. One would think having a twin brother would teach him the necessity of sharing things, but Atsumu was, and always had been, a selfish creature. Kiyoomi wondered if that was it—if Atsumu was so used to having to carry love all by himself that he couldn’t imagine someone wanting to share it with him.

Hopeful thinking. Kiyoomi was never a fan of purposely fooling himself, but later he’d been starting to see the magic of it.

Atsumu looked at his hand from the corner of his eye and then pretended he hadn’t seen it. Kiyoomi knew he had. Kiyoomi had the impression that everyone in the room knew, and that Atsumu knew that everyone in the room knew. Still, he kept pretending.

Kiyoomi knew just enough about defense mechanisms to believe that was one.

It took him twenty seconds to understand he would have to ask for it. That Atsumu wanted to make him say something. When, in fact, Atsumu was the one who wasn’t saying anything, the one turning his face whenever Kiyoomi entered the room, the one pretending Kiyoomi had never sucked his cock in the bathroom of a restaurant.

Something that, quite honestly, can’t seem to get out of Kiyoomi’s mind.

“Can you pass the popcorn?” he said, his voice flat and hollow. Dead, like the people in the movie. Is it romantic to watch supernatural horror with the boy you like and who seems to not like you back, and you two are sitting with a foot of distance between you to prevent accidental touching, and he doesn’t even want to pass you the popcorn? And then, because Atsumu was a jerk but Kiyoomi wasn’t about to give up fighting for the first place. “You’ve been hogging it. Again.”

Atsumu looked at Kiyoomi as if he was a worm he found in a lettuce leaf, one of those small things you can squash between your thumbnails. He looked ready to turn the bucket upside down Kiyoomi’s head. He looked ready to pin him to the ground and—not kiss him. More like beat him into dust.

Instead, he smiled. If venomous snakes could smile, Kiyoomi thought it would be like that. 

“Here,” Atsumu said, and for one second Kiyoomi was truly scared that Atsumu's hands were about to fly to his throat as soon as he didn’t have to hold the bucket anymore. “Ya can have it. Ya can all have it. I’m full.” Of shit, Kiyoomi completed in his head. 

Hinata’s head suddenly appeared between their shoulders, like an entity about to tell them to behave. “Everything alright down here?”

No one was interested in who would survive the demon/cult/angry grandmother’s ghost, anymore. Kiyoomi and Atsumu’s convoluted is-it-love-or-hate? epic tale was much better. For them, at last. For Kiyoomi, it was a nightmare inside another.

 _Yes,_ Kiyoomi said at the same time of Atsumu’s _fucking great_ , and Hinata smiled a very pained smile to let them know things were obviously not great, but now wasn’t the time to talk about that. Kiyoomi didn’t think there was a right time to talk about that, unless it was with Atsumu explaining what the fuck was going on, and why he’s been acting even more of an asshole, and why he decided his last plaything was boring and decided to take a shot with Kiyoomi’s heart.

The movie gave him an answer for all the bullshit it pulled, at last.

Atsumu was out as soon as the credits rolled up.

✸

Kiyoomi really tried not to think about Atsumu’s cock in his mouth.

He would like to address the fact that he wasn’t, in any possibility, a sex addict. In fact, Kiyoomi barely entertained thoughts about sex. If he had to place himself somewhere in the LGBT+ spectrum, it would be in the asexual area of it.

Apart from Ushijima Wakatoshi in his ages thirteen to nineteen, who unwitting taught Kiyoomi he could want to ride someone to the brink of extinction, and then Miya Atsumu, who taught him he could want to punch someone to the brink of extinction and still want to ride him, Kiyoomi didn’t have more in his life than quick fucks in his college years that served more to throw people off his back than to achieve any kind of sexual gratification. 

So when he’s rotated to the back line and he can’t stop staring at Miya Atsumu’s thighs and Miya Atsumu’s ass and he ends up missing another serve receive, it becomes a bigger deal than he would’ve liked to.

It was the fifth time he’d said _sorry_ to his teammates after screwing up something easy, the third time Atsumu looked at him as if he was the lowest scum on Earth, and the first Adriah looked at with something akin to pity. 

This, Kiyoomi thought, has to stop. Now.

✸

In the list of places to forget about your massive crush on some jackass that you should never allow yourself to fall in love with—is there something like it? _Allowing_ yourself to fall in love? Because for Kiyoomi it felt more like an inevitable car crash, his pedals broken, his wheel broken, his body speeding straight to the biggest wall he could conjure—his brother's restaurant does not rank in the first place. Or second. Or anywhere between the top ten.

But Onigiri Miya was _good_ , and Osamu might as well have been a god in the kitchen. Kiyoomi wasn’t giving up on that just because he was not on talking terms with said Osamu’s brother. Who was the one who took him to the restaurant in the first place, the one that couldn’t wait for him to taste his brother’s cooking, the one that kept talking about how much of a total moron Osamu was, but yet, _he just makes a mean onigiri, ya know?_

After the first taste of the umeboshi onigiri, Kiyoomi knew.

Osamu greeted him with a look that bordered on sympathy, by which Kiyoomi could sense that he knew at least some percent of what was going on. Atsumu claimed to hate Osamu but still he told him everything, and he called him weekly, and he went to the restaurant more times one could count—he said it was for free onigiri, but it was a lie. Osamu was not above charging his own twin, as Kiyoomi had bore witness more than once. 

If anything, Osamu was always saying he should charge double for Atsumu, as payback for all the stress the jackass put him through.

Being Miya Atsumu wasn’t easy.

But then, it shouldn’t. Not when being Miya Atsumu consisted of being an asshole extraordinaire, someone who took pride in being an exemplary specimen of a bastard. Being Miya Atsumu should be hard and taxing and, frankly, should involve all the things Miya Atsumu inflicted on the people drawn towards him. People that got no choice besides being pulled into his gravitational field.

Being Miya Atsumu should involve getting his heart broken, as he was doing with Sakusa Kiyoomi, asshole almost extraordinaire, silver medal, #2 in the ranking, from which Atsumu kicked him down good, right between the ribs. Atsumu said no gloomy Tokyo boy whose talent was having floppy wrists was gonna take his place. Atsumu shot to kill.

Kiyoomi thought _I wish it wasn’t me_. But did that mean the rest of it wouldn’t have happened, too? The movie nights and the nights spent talking in his room and the nights eating at Onigiri Miya and the nights in which he would look at the stars in the sky and think how comical, that he found comfort in Miya Atsumu, of all people. 

His high school self would roll his eyes. And yet there he was. Seven years later, in love with the worst person imaginable.

At least the onigiri was good. Kiyoomi could live with being rejected by Miya Atsumu—is it rejection when he won’t even acknowledge it?—if it meant getting to know the restaurant. It would be hard to look at Osamu as his brother mirrored his face, but then, it was hard seeing Atsumu in practice every day, and Kiyoomi managed still.

He’d been doing it all his life. Managing. Accommodating the feelings inside himself in a way to make them muted, hollow. Dull.

It was just unsettling that he had to do that because of Atsumu, who always wore his in his sleeve, as far as cliches go.

There was a certain luck that ran through his veins, or so Kiyoomi thought, thanking whoever god led him to choose the furthest table from the entrance as he heard the door opening, the voice whose moans his mind repeated time and time again before sleep came for him ricocheting off the walls, going straight for his heart.

“‘Samu, yer favorite client is here!”

Oh god, Kiyoomi thought while Osamu shouted _I can’t see him!_ What kind of economy is this where a man can’t eat onigiri in peace? He just wanted to eat some rice, not to have a meltdown over it. 

But it felt like, in some way, Atsumu was bound to follow him wherever he went.

(kiyoomi thought that as if they didn’t live in the same dorm, and as if the restaurant didn’t belong to Atsumu’s brother. he needed to find another place to eat, no matter how good was osamu’s cooking. and he needed, desperately, to move.)

“I’ll want the minced tuna and spring onion, again. On the house, ya listening to me?” _Don’t look at me, don’t look at me,_ Kiyoomi thought, as if he could make Atsumu turn back with the force of his mind.

Scratch that about being lucky—his table was the closest to the counter, and of course Atsumu would waltz right to it, like he owned the place, and of course he would see him, because Kiyoomi was almost two meters tall. There was no such thing as not seeing him.

But still he hoped.

“Get out of my restaurant or I will call security.”

 _Please_.

“‘Samu, come on! I had another shitty day at practice and I really need— What—”

Oh, for the love of god.

Kiyoomi didn’t turn back, didn’t take his eyes from the onigiri in front of him as Miya Atsumu sauntered to his table, draping himself over the opposite chair. He was easily the most aggravating person the universe had managed to spit out in its presumed thirteen billion years of existence.

“What the fuck are ya doin’ here, Sakusa?” he said, and Kiyoomi thanked twenty years of social ineptitude for schooling his facial features in the same bored expression even in the most adverse of situations. Like when the man he loved talked with him as if he was some unwanted guest begging for scraps on his doorstep. “Are ya following me, now? Is that it?”

“I was here before you. And I’m eating onigiri.” Kiyoomi swept his arms over the table, as if by showing Atsumu his order he could make him disappear. Two umeboshi onigiri. “This is an onigiri restaurant, in case you aren’t aware.”

When Atsumu smiled at him, Kiyoomi thought he could easily cut himself on it. And this time he wanted to—small spoonfuls of whatever Atsumu had in store for him, since love seemed unavailable at the moment. Out of stock for the foreseeable future.

“I’m quite aware that this is _my brother’s_ onigiri restaurant, and that there are hundred others like this all ‘round Osaka, and yet here ya are.” As if it wasn’t him that told Kiyoomi there was no restaurant that could compare to his brother’s, no rice that could compare to the one Kita Shinsuke grew with his own careful hands, hands that told Atsumu he didn’t love him like that. Like Kiyoomi did. Kiyoomi thought about the burn of bleach in his skin, the picked corners of his fingers, and how Atsumu was willing to help until he wasn’t.

Maybe— wait. Kiyoomi didn’t want to think about that, not with strangers around.

“This one is the best.”

There was a very real possibility that Atsumu would punch him in the face and there was an even more real possibility that Kiyoomi would punch him back, and on the top of things not proper for future National Team’s athletes, picking a fist fight against your teammate in a public place at 8 PM ranked quite high.

“Look here, dumbass.” It was Osamu talking this time, and really, why did Kiyoomi have to fall for the obnoxious twin instead of the pleasant one? How did Suna Rintarou feel, knowing he got the bigger end of a wishbone? “I’m not lettin’ ya scare the clients off _my_ restaurant, so either ya sit down and talk with Sakusa-san like the grown up ya ain’t, or I kick yer ass outta here. Got it?”

“What the fuck? I’m yer _brother_ , yer supposed to help me!”

“And I am helping ya, but yer head is just too filled with shit to see it. And besides, Sakusa-san is paying, and yer not.” Kiyoomi felt that somehow it wasn’t just about him anymore, but then he was locked between the twins, one at each side of the table, and there were customers looking at them already, ‘cause Atsumu was incapable of not throwing a fuss, and he was too loud, and too stupid, and Kiyoomi couldn’t stop thinking about him, not even when Atsumu was making it clear how he didn’t want to think about Kiyoomi. “Just sit yer ass down and talk with him, okay? Ya gotta stop—”

Atsumu banged both hands in the table, making Kiyoomi’s plate shake, making their little world of three become the focal point of the restaurant, all eyes aimed at them, these two identical men almost shouting at one another and a quiet one in the middle, looking like he couldn’t tell what he was doing here if his life depended on it.

There was no way of hiding it—from his bare teeth to his curled lips, anger radiated off Atsumu like a heatwave, never before directed at Kiyoomi, not like that, not like it mattered. Not like it was real.

“Shut yer trap, ‘Samu. Yer always pretendin’ to be the smart twin, but this time, ya don’t know shit about what's goin’ on.” Atsumu looked at Osamu as if he was trying really hard to restrain himself from jumping on his neck, and then he looked at Kiyoomi as if he wanted nothing more than jumping on his neck and ripping his throat in pieces. “Whatever. I’m not staying here.”

“No, wait.” Kiyoomi said, the first thing since Osamu wedged himself between their fight. He did not want to be the guy that makes one sibling hate the other, even if it wouldn’t last more than a day. It was just a pity he couldn’t finish his onigiri in time. Maybe Osamu would give him a free serving the next time he came. Though considering the circumstances, it would be best if he changed to delivery. “You stay. I’m the one that should leave. It’s your brother’s restaurant, and I’m intruding, so… here.”

He opened his wallet, fully intending to throw the banknotes on the table and leave, as if inside some terribly written romantic comedy. Yet there was nothing comical about what was happening, nor anything romantic.

The customers were pretending not to stare, but Kiyoomi knew he was bound to see his face on the internet, the main character of some piece of dubious news with a ludicrous headline, sooner than later.

“Sakusa-san, ya don’t have to—” Osamu said, or tried to, before Atsumu interjected.

“Yeah, _Sakusa-san_ , don’t worry yerself! I wouldn't want to spoil yer fun with my little brother here.” Atsumu stepped back, eager to put some space between them, when everything Kiyoomi wanted was to have the courage to grab him by the arm and make him sit down, make him _listen_ , for the first time in his life. But his arms remained motionless, his stare fixed on Atsumu, waiting for when he would inevitably ruin everything that still managed to stand upright in Kiyoomi’s chest. “Bet yer wishin’ it was his cock ya sucked, huh? By all means, don’t let me stand in the way.”

The words were more than a knife turning inside his chest, and in one second Kiyoomi was split open, and in the next he was gurgling in his own blood, and in the next he was reaching out, arm outstretched, the words crumbled inside his throat, swimming in red, the color of love. 

Kiyoomi didn’t think there was anything lovely in this. He didn’t think there was anything like love inside Atsumu’s lungs, not for him.

He wanted to run after him, his legs carving a path into the night sky, shortening the edge. He wanted to grab Atsumu by his—insufferable, handsome—face and say— what? _I don’t want to suck your brother’s cock_ and _why won’t you talk to me?_ and _I just want to talk to you_ and _I think I’m in love with you_ and there’s a god rolled up in a ball below my lungs and it cannot help but long for your name.

None of these sounded right. None of these sounded like the thing that would make Atsumu understand.

It was Osamu that stopped him, hand firmly around his wrist, keeping him in place, keeping him somewhere that was not his. 

“Nothing good will happen if ya run after him when he’s like this, Sakusa-san.” Osamu, Kiyoomi thought, must have been experienced in picking up the pieces of people Atsumu broke apart in his wake, unflinching, refusing to look back, to take responsibility for the damage he caused. “He needs to… calm down, and think. God knows how hard it is for ‘Tsumu to think.”

“I don’t think—”

“Sit down,” Osamu said, and that time it carried the weight of an order, so Kiyoomi, starstruck and spun out of orbit, sat down and held back against the downpour of his own tears. He didn’t care if the customers were staring, or if the next day he would wake up with news that revealed how Japan’s National Team was falling apart before it was properly put together. Osamu’s hand was on his shoulder, tethering, and Kiyoomi could not forget the last words Atsumu had said.

“He’ll come around, Sakusa-san. I know it’s a hard thing to ask, but don’t fret too much about it, okay? It’s Atsumu we’re talking about.”

Kiyoomi looked up at Osamu, as one might look up to a god, and tried to believe him. “Do you really think he’ll come around?” It’s Atsumu we’re talking about, after all.

Osamu sighed. “To be honest, I’m not quite sure.”

 _And if you, his twin brother, half of his soul, doesn’t know_ , Kiyoomi wanted to say, _where does that leave me?_

✸

Hinata was supposed to be bright and dumb and good at volleyball and nothing else. 

Honestly, Kiyoomi would prefer him if he was like that. It was easier not to get attached when you could slap the _dumb_ sticker in someone’s face. He had done that with Atsumu, and things were doing great, in the sense that things did not exist, and then Atsumu ripped the sticker off and it was all downhill from there.

But then, Atsumu was dumb and abrasive. Hinata was dumb and… endearing. Maybe taking his sticker off wouldn’t cause that much harm.

“So,” Hinata quipped, in that way that made everyone fall in love with him instantly. It was the devil’s work. “How are you feeling?”

And it couldn’t have been anyone else besides that devil that put Sakusa Kiyoomi in the place to look for advice from Hinata. That was something that no one in the universe could have fantasized about.

“Like shit.” Kiyoomi looked like shit, and he was aware of that. His eye bags were too deep, his hair disheveled, his mind unattentive, lost. “But you can see that.”

The only thing that made it all marginally better was that Atsumu looked just as bad as him.

“Yeah, I can. No offense.” _None taken_ , Kiyoomi thought. It was difficult to be offended by something Hinata said. He had this way of being that let you know he didn’t mean something bad by it. He was just being honest. Painfully so. “I mean, how do you feel inside? Like… in your heart.”

Considering that Hinata had been in the Black Jackals for just about two years and still they hadn’t figured out if he was dating the Adler’s setter or the gamer who sponsored him, that might not have been the best idea Kiyoomi had.

But it was too late to turn back. And he was already so screwed anyway, so disoriented, adrift in a storm. There was nothing to lose.

Kiyoomi looked around the room, at the walls covered with pictures of Hinata’s friends at school, and his friends at Brazil, and beaches and sand and that thing he called _pastéis_ , and tried to find the words he needed to say. 

“I feel like… like I fell so fast, there wasn’t even time to think about all the things that could go wrong. And now everything is going wrong. And all I can do is stay here and wait for this to pass. I’m sure as hell not talking to him, not after— I’m not.” He shook his head, trying to get the memories of last week off his mind as if they were leaves clinging to his hair. “I’ll move out, and I'll see him exclusively at practices, and it’ll pass. It has to.”

Hinata had his arms crossed on top of the kitchen table, taking spoonful after spoonful of some Brazilian sweet dish he called _brigadeiro_ , which was just chocolate and butter and some strange type of milk. Hinata said it was a blessing for sad people. Like ice cream, but not cold, so you could eat it in winter too.

Wordlessly, he pushed the plate in Kiyoomi’s direction. It seemed, in his honest opinion, kind of gross.

“Trust me, you’ll feel better.”

Kiyoomi sighed, which was a thing he’d been doing so much these days it had become second nature, and then picked up the other spoon, barely filling half of it before putting it inside his mouth.

It tasted just like chocolate. But _sweet_ , so sweet the team’s nutritionist would have a stroke, if she knew. Overall, just the kind of thing to eat while watching a sad movie and crying about the guy that doesn’t love you back. 

Kiyoomi filled his spoon close to spilling, and Hinata didn’t hide his smile.

“Atsumu isn't any better, you know.” 

Kiyoomi knew, though he doubted they were suffering for the same reasons. Atsumu was probably mad he could find a way to get Kiyoomi kicked out of the team.

“He looked good enough when he told me I wished I had sucked his brother's dick.” Hinata, the good friend he was, choked on his chocolate. “He didn't tell you?”

“He told me you had a fight at his brother’s restaurant, not _this_.” Typical Atsumu, Kiyoomi thought, hiding his mistakes. Hinata shook his head, visibly exasperated. Kiyoomi wanted to help him out, and then remembered _he_ was the reason Hinata was like this. Him, Atsumu, and whatever was in between. “I guess— I don’t want you to think I’m excusing his actions or anything, ‘cause i’m not, but— he’s very, very _confused_ , and—”

“Hinata, please. It’s not that hard to turn someone down gently. He could’ve looked me in the eye the day after and said _hey, I’m sorry but I think you got the wrong impression about this._ See? Not hard.”

“Let me finish,” he said, and Kiyoomi nodded, both because he knew Hinata wouldn’t give up and because he wanted to know what he had to say.

“Okay. I’ll probably say too much, but then, it’s Atsumu’s fault, ‘cause you’re right. He should be able to look you in the eyes and tell you whatever he wants to, but he _can’t, ‘_ cause he’s being a coward, and that is making him miserable and it’s making you miserable, so I’m stepping in. Like the good friend I am.” Hinata nodded to himself, clearly used to being the good friend inside a circle of morons. “He’s been in love with you for quite some time, you know.”

Kiyoomi scoffed. Atsumu had nothing to him but contempt—and the mutuality of it was what kept their relationship comfortable, until Kiyoomi decided to try his hand at feeling something more. “If you say so.”

“Omi-kun, love isn’t a straight line or something measured and guided for you to take. It’s— messy. And to be honest, it does more harm than good sometimes. Look at me and Tobio. There are days where I don't know if we’re really dating or if our relationship it’s just one big elaborate plan of his to defeat me. I would do the same, but he asked first.”

“So you and Kageyama Tobio are dating, after all.” Shit, Kiyoomi had bet fifty bucks on the gamer guy. He couldn’t let Inunaki get word of that. “I thought you liked the rich one.”

“Kenma? He is only a friend! Granted, I had a crush in him all over high school, but it’s over now. And I think— I loved Tobio since he handed me my ass in middle school. In a strange sort of way.” Hinata laughed, shining and carefree, and Kiyoomi prepared other ten questions in his mind so they could delve into the depths of Hinata’s relationship and leave his not-relationship alone. “But we’re talking about you, not me.”

Kiyoomi sighed (again). So much for hoping.

“If he has liked me for so long, why can't he talk to me now? Why does he keep being the worst person in existence? It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.” Being in love doesn’t make sense. _Glukupikron._ Sweetbitter, but then, for Kiyoomi, it had been bitter since the beginning. Where was the sweetness promised? “There's one thing as being, like you said, confused, or scared, and then there’s being completely irrational. Atsumu is the latter. And every time I tried to make sense of what he’s doing, or trying to do, he just goes and fucks things up even worse.”

And it’ll come to a point where I can’t stand it anymore. It’ll come to a point where I won’t be able to love him anymore, when it’ll stop, a point where hate will sit higher at the summit of my chest and laugh, alone.

Kiyoomi didn’t need to say that for Hinata to know.

“You need to talk to him.” Kiyoomi wanted to stand up, to say no and no way and never, but he knew. When he first started to dig his grave, he knew where it would end up, knew that the shovel was bound to stop somewhere, knew he would have to use his own hands. “Because I can stay here talking all day, but you need to listen to these things from him. And you’ll need to come to him, because he’s stubborn, and spiteful, and he’s _hurt_ , and he won’t come to you. You’ll have to come to him, Kiyoomi-kun. Or else… you’ll fall apart. Both of you.”

He was wrong. So Kiyoomi said it: “I think we already did.”

“I think you don’t know it yet.” Hinata smiled at him, and this time was a small, subdued thing. _He’s sad_ , Kiyoomi thought, later. _He’s watching as we destroy one another and it’s making him sad_. “I think you won’t until you try.”

Kiyoomi didn’t answer. Instead, he looked down and ate more of the chocolate monstrosity. He didn’t have to tell Hinata he was right. 

In the edge, he outstretched his arm, his fingers trying for what lies in between, the thing every lover is drawn to, the window open in space and time where a winged god patiently waits for a single touch.

✸

Contrary to everything he’d ever believed about himself, Kiyoomi stood with Hinata before the door to Atsumu’s room.

“Shouldn’t you have some sort of safeword? If things get too heated, in the bad sense, you can shout it and I'll barge in with Bokkun to prevent you two from killing each other.” Hinata said that as if it was a masterful, soundproof plan, and Kiyoomi couldn’t help but thank the fates for bringing this boy into his team. “But I bet soon enough the only heat inside this room will be—”

“Let’s not anticipate ourselves, shall we?” Considering Kiyoomi’s sexual record with Atsumu consisted of one single blowjob, after which they have failed to exchange words like civilized beings, maybe it’s best if things stay at room temperature for a while. “Now go on before I give up.”

He was not giving up, and he knew it. Motoya said that whenever he set his eyes on something, he could chase it to hell and back. Kiyoomi thought that maybe he was right, after all.

It was a strike of bad luck that he set his eyes on Miya Atsumu. But now it was too late to ask for a refund, and it wasn’t like karma would grant him one.

Hinata knocked. Kiyoomi flattened his body against the wall on its side and regretted every single one of his life choices.

“Shou-kun!” Atsumu said, oblivious, and Kiyoomi couldn’t see him but he knew he was smiling, happy in his ignorance. The calm before the storm. “Come on in, I was just thinking about texting ya.”

“Actually,” Hinata said, and if Atsumu were a little more smart, he would’ve closed the door in his face, because that was the _actually_ of someone about to throw something on your face and say _catch!_ Hinata woudn’t say catch, though. He wasn’t a man of warnings. “Someone else is coming in.”

“What—”

Like a talented actor, Kiyoomi stepped in sight like he didn’t want to die on the spot.

“Atsumu.” Simple. Concise. Not like Kiyoomi wanted to shake him by the shoulders and then kiss him and then—

“No way.”

“Yes! Way!” Hinata beamed, before pulling Kiyoomi by the arm, forgetting the no-touching rule for a second, and pushing him inside Atsumu’s room like some ragdoll. A cursed Raggedy Ann. Is love a curse? “Have fun!”

Kiyoomi would like to ask Hinata exactly how the fuck was he supposed to have fun in this kind of situation, but the spiker was already gone. Likely to Bokuto’s room so they could apply sheet masks and watch doramas while they gossiped about their teammates' convoluted not-love life.

“So,” Kiyoomi said, and it was the first time he didn’t bother to keep his indifferent facade, because he knew it would only complicate things, that Atsumu wouldn’t bear to think he was the only one going crazy over this. And he wasn’t. “We need to talk.”

“I disagree.” 

Kiyoomi had been trying very hard not to stare too much at Atsumu these past few days, but now that there were only the two of them, Kiyoomi agreed with Hinata: Atsumu looked terrible, like someone who had been spit out of a hurricane, every piece in a different place from the original ones. Describing him as a mess would be kindness.

“Atsumu—” If Kiyoomi said his name enough times, then maybe—

“Look, I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have told ya wanted to suck ‘Samu’s cock. That was… mean.” Mean, Kiyoomi thought, was a monumental understatement. “I ran into him some days ago and he said the only reason he didn’t kill me on sight was ‘cause mom would be sad, so… here’s yer apology.”

“Accepted.” Without as much as a second thought. Kiyoomi was tired of hanging onto the past, especially these past few weeks. “Anything else?”

Atsumu looked at him as if he were a high schooler being asked to use a quadratic formula—something he should know, and yet did not. “No? Ya can leave now.”

Atsumu didn’t invite Kiyoomi to sit down, but he did that even so, choosing the armchair he knew stayed mostly unused, because Atsumu favored throwing himself on the sofa with his feet propped up. “I’m not leaving until you physically kick me out, or we talk about this.”

“There’s nothin’ to talk about, okay? _Nothin’_.” Atsumu had his arms crossed over his chest, and Kiyoomi couldn’t help but want to ask him to please, open up, just this once. “We don’t need to talk, or to be friends. We just need to do our jobs, so I think it’s best for ya to leave before things turn ugly again.”

“ _Again?_ Things have been the ugliest possible for me since that day. I can’t even dig a spike properly anymore, ‘cause you’re just… standing next to me on the court and I can’t concentrate on anything besides how much I want to— to solve this as if it’s some sort of logical problem, and yet it’s not, and you’re the most illogical person I’ve ever met.”

Atsumu pointed a finger at him, not accusatory—his face alight as if Kiyoomi had unintentionally taught him what matter is made of. “See, that’s it! There’s no point in talking about something we both know won’t work. ‘Cause yer too— and I’m too— me, ya know! We don’t match!”

If he had something like _we’re opposites_ , Kiyoomi could have swallowed his pride and said _opposites attract_ , even though he’d been slowly internalizing the idea that he and Atsumu were much more alike than they first thought. But Atsumu said _we don’t match_ , said that there was no point of contact between them, no use in trying to fit together two puzzle pieces so distinct they might as well belong to different sets. Talking was useless, when whatever they might have between them was doomed from the start.

Atsumu was standing before the window, and the afternoon rays that invaded the room as the sun made its way to the horizon framed him in light, like Atsumu was the sole holder of an universal truth. An angel with a trumpet playing a song of defeat.

It hurt to look at him—because Kiyoomi knew he was right. Because Kiyoomi didn’t want him to be, not anymore.

And whenever he set his eyes on something, he chased it to hell and back. It took him too long. He should’ve grabbed Atsumu by the wrist the day after, should’ve pinned him to a wall in front of everyone and ripped the words out of throat, but Kiyoomi was scared too, and for a long time he refused to name the pressure that crushed his heart and at the same time made it featherlight, floating amidst the clouds, for what it was. Eros. Kiyoomi tried a hundred different words, but only one would settle. Only one explained why he couldn’t allow himself to stop trying.

“You don’t know that,” Kiyoomi said, his voice tired and tired and still trying, somehow. Telling Atsumu that the bridge was scary, yeah, and it might fall over, but it might not—not if he steps carefully, in the right places, where Kiyoomi shows him. “I didn’t think I could fall in love with you, and here I am. There’s no way I could’ve ever imagined— and yet I can’t stop thinking about you. And I thought you hated me, when you began to ignore me, I thought you regretted all that, I thought you didn’t want to look me in the eyes ever again. But that’s not the truth. It took me some time to get this, but— you’re as bad as I am. You are as in love as I am. You just can’t admit it to yourself.”

“Oh, please, I’ve admitted it to myself a long time ago.” Like a balloon popped out, Atsumu deflated, closing his eyes and smiling—no teeth, no scorn, just an upcurve of his lips that didn’t conceal his sadness. Kiyoomi didn’t want him like that. He wanted him feral, and shouting, and shining. “I’m a fuck up, ya know that? I fuck up _everything_ in my life. And that includes all my romantic relationships, or not-relationships. I get insecure, or angry, or scared, and then I fuck things up until it’s too late to put them back in place.”

Kiyoomi wondered if there was a god curled inside Atsumu’s chest too, if it was finally waking up, shaking his wings, ready to take flight.

Atsumu circled the living room, a hand tousling his mustard-colored hair that Kiyoomi couldn’t help but thinking it was beautiful even when every rational cell of his body told him it wasn’t, and sat down on the sofa. Kiyoomi left the armchair and settled by his side, hands over his lap so Atsumu could see the slight tremors that ran through them, so that he could see that Kiyoomi was so scared as he was.

“I fall in love easily. Like, with ya, I didn’t want anything, I thought maybe we could be just a tad more friendly to each other, and then— and it’s really like fallin’, ‘cause in one second yer feet are planted firmly on the ground and in the other there’s nothing below ya, and yer just— fallin’. Without knowing when it’ll stop. If it’ll stop.” He traced the half of a downturned arch with his hands, telling Kiyoomi _see this? is what you did to me._ “‘Samu says it’s ‘cause I have a big heart and some other sappy bullshit, but he has a nice life for himself, and someone who loves him back since high school when he was even more boring than he’s now, so I never paid that much attention to him. I don't think it’s ‘cause I have a big heart. I think— I wanted to be wanted.”

Kiyoomi wanted Atsumu to open himself, and there he was, baring his heart on his living room’s center table at seven o’clock in the night, so Kiyoomi could get a first hand glimpse at the living, beating thing, and decide for himself what he wanted to do with it.

Kiyoomi, too, wanted to be wanted. What a fascinating thing, he thought, to wish for desire in itself. 

Atsumu raised his eyes from his lap and stared right into Kiyoomi’s own, or maybe right into his soul. It was hard to say. It was hard to think, with Atsumu so close, with the smell of his cologne and the words that reached Kiyoomi’s ears. 

“It’s not like I never had a romantic relationship before. I have. But none of them had ever made me feel that, feel _wanted_. And ya do. And that scares the fuck out of me.”

Kiyoomi’s own personal god shook its wings inside him, coiled up. Ready. 

“I want you.” His hand reached for Atsumu’s, and it was so strange, being the initiator of physical contact, being the one that reached for it, that longed. Being the one that crossed the edge. “Atsumu. I want you.”

“I know,” Atsumu said, reverent, a nonbeliever who’s faced with proof of divinity, whose chest is filled, for the first time in his life, with something bigger than himself. “I know. I know. I know.” 

And then his hands were on Kiyoomi’s arms and then his shoulder and then his face. And he got closer and closer until there was no getting closer anymore, until his mouth was over Kiyoomi’s, and they kissed once in the restaurant’s bathroom but it wasn’t like this—without the haze of the alcohol Atsumu tasted heavenly, like a fruit yet to be discovered, like something someone would grant a blessed one, in a dream. But this wasn’t a dream, and there was no way Kiyoomi could believe it be, not with Atsumu’s hands finding purchase in his shoulders, with Atsumu climbing into his lap, like he couldn’t fit anywhere else, Kiyoomi holding him by the waist, hard enough to bruise, so that Atsumu wouldn’t be able to run from him if he decided so tomorrow, not with the shape of Kiyoomi’s fingertips imprinted into his skin.

But Atsumu wasn’t running off again. And this was not a dream.

Kiyoomi was a hundred percent sure of that when he felt something hard poking at his waist. “Shit, sorry,” Atsumu said, after breaking his kiss. And then he looked at Kiyoomi—star struck, loose limbed Kiyoomi—and started to laugh. “Or maybe not sorry, I guess.”

Kiyoomi didn’t say anything, instead shifting Atsumu on his lap, so he could feel how hard Kiyoomi was too. He felt like a teenager, somehow, getting excited from a single kiss. But he didn’t care, not after everything. 

“Yeah, definitely _not sorry._ ”

Another kiss and then a hand under his shirt, warm, encapsulated sunlight. A hand on the buckle of his belt, undoing it.

“Wait,” Kiyoomi said, hand in Atsumu’s chest, breaking the kiss apart but still keeping him close enough. “I think Bokuto and Hinata are by the other side of the door, listening.”

“What the fuck?”

“Hinata said I could shout and they would come inside and separate us, if things got too heated.”

Atsumu laughed, head thrown back, and Kiyoomi couldn’t help but bite his neck until a gasp left him, until he squirmed in Kiyoomi’s lap. “Things are about to get dangerously heated, I believe.”

“In a good sense.”

“I would say in an _amazing_ sense, but yeah. So, care to have a good laugh at their expense, after?”

Kiyoomi thought we shouldn’t. _We’ll traumatize them for life_. And then Kiyoomi thought, I am so happy. And he laughed, and he kissed Atsumu, hands pulling at the hem of his shirt, Eros inside his chest with his wings stretched up; take the leap, and then— fly.

✸

“I was really worried, you know! And then the sounds just stopped, and Bokkun and me were worried they had somehow killed each other silently, and then— well. I won’t share the details, but I really wish I could forget that.”

There was popcorn all over Hinata’s lap from speaking with his mouth full, but it was worth it to see Inunaki bending down from laughter, Adriah covering his mouth so as to leave them with a shred of dignity. 

“They could have warned us, or screamed something, but no!” Bokuto spun the story with the same intensity as if it had happened earlier this morning, as if he still had the sounds inside his head. Maybe he did. Kiyoomi knew they would get traumatized. “They just went at it, you know, like rabbits. Rabbits who are really _really_ bad friends.”

The TV was playing Rosemary’s Baby, but none of them are watching it, because somehow a woman birthing Satan’s spawn is nothing compared to Kiyoomi and Atsumu’s incredible trajectory to the arms of true love. Kiyoomi knew Atsumu was having the time of his life, even if he was more ashamed than anything—at least he wouldn’t have to pay attention to the movie, which meant no nightmares afterwards.

Kiyoomi always held him during those nights, so he could sleep undisturbed. He had since then learned to appreciate movie nights. 

“That wouldn’t have happened if ya weren’t so nosy, Shou-kun! If Kiyoomi shouted for help ya would have heard it in Bokuto’s room, no need to stand besides my door!”

Poor Rosemary, Kiyoomi thought. She had a good life, before. And now she was giving birth to the antichrist. Kiyoomi’s life was its own kind of mess, before, but he always made sure to hide it well, to let it shine as clean as he himself was. And it was still messy, after. Some days he thought it was messier than ever before, but it felt right—a good type of mess. A comforting one.

“I should never have gotten you together. You’re the two biggest jerks of the team! It’s like a power couple of evilness.” Hinata said, and everyone nodded, even Atsumu. They were funny, these guys, and Kiyoomi loved them, and he wanted to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me. For helping us. But that would be tremendously out of character. So he said, 

“Sucks to be you.”

And everyone gasped while Atsumu exploded in a small supernova, his laugh clinging to the walls and to Kiyoomi’s clothes and his heart—so Kiyoomi kissed him, laughing inside his lips, where it would be a secret, something for Atsumu only, the edges of them blurring together, melting into one. 

**Author's Note:**

> can you believe i didn't even ship sakuatsu before starting this? i was trying to settle on a ship that would go along well with a work inspired by sober to death (did you listen to it???? DID YOU???? TELL ME IF YOU DID I WANNA KNOW) and my brain flashed SAKUATSU and so here we are today.
> 
> if you read this to the end: thank you. truly. 
> 
> and if you want to hmu, i'm oceaniads @ twitter


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